Press A to Continue
by ShotsOfSunshine
Summary: Sonic the Hedgehog has overcome hardships and threats that were out of this world. However, has he met his match when a mysterious new opponent rises to the surface? A threat that has been following Sonic all his life. Sonadow
1. Game Start

_**Here's my latest offering to the realm of fan fiction. Press A to Continue. It was spawned from a rather crack-ish idea that I had to simply write down. It quickly morphed into something far more serious than I ever intended it to become, and before I knew it the story had a pulse. THE RATING MAY GO UP**_

_**Warnings: Yaoi. Sonadow to be precise. There's an OC, but she's the villain and you're more than free to hate her. I really don't like her myself – because she's... y'know, the villain.**_

_**  
Pairings: Sonadow, possibly Knuxouge**_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic nor do I get any money from him.**_

_--::--_

_Wet fur slipped under gloved hands that desperately tried to find purchase on the arm of Mobius' hero, Sonic the Hedgehog. The blue speedster was sinking like a rock in the sludgy waters of Chemical Plant Zone, unconscious from an injury to his head that was still freely bleeding. The cobalt fur, normally so bright and well groomed was now dirty and caked over with thick oil. _

_The one trying to pull him out of the sucking hold of the polluted ocean was a dark hedgehog that went by the name of Shadow. He was dirty from his attempts to pull Sonic to safety and his arms strained from the resistance he met. The red streaks that decorated his quills had gotten to the point where they no longer stood out vibrantly against Shadow's black fur. To a normal onlooker he looked no different than a dirty hedgehog._

_Shadow planted his feet on the creaking pier he was standing on and tugged with all his might in an attempt to dislodge the other hedgehog. For all his efforts, he was rewarded with slow progress. Very sluggishly, the ocean began to relinquish its hold on its captive. _

_It fought with Shadow every step of the way, but eventually the dark racer managed to wrestle Sonic from its depths. He gritted his fangs and dragged his unconscious rival onto the pier with him, panting from the effort it had taken to remove him from about six layers of various kinds of trash, oil slicks, robotic parts, and Chaos only knew what else._

_Shadow felt like shaving off all of his fur and burning it after this was done._

_Now where on Mobius had Nack run off to? Shadow grouchily wiped a smear of grease from his muzzle and cast ruby eyes around him for any sign of that blasted weasel. He better have run, because once Shadow got his hands on him that purple hind would be his._

_Fighting to catch his breath, Shadow looked up across the way to see none other than the target they had chased down all over the zone standing not ten yards to Shadow's right. The ebony hedgehog however made no attempt to move as he spotted just what was dangling in Nack's hand. A lit match. Shadow held absolutely still._

_If that fire so much as touched a grease stain, the whole zone would go up in flames. _

_Shadow's body tensed subtlety as his mind went over his options at lightning speed. He could run for it but would never escape the blast while carrying the dead weight of Sonic. _

_There was always the possibility that Shadow could rush Nack himself, but the weasel was a deadly sharp shooter. While Shadow could easily dodge his bullets... there was the matter of Sonic again. Unconscious and prone._

_Shadow mentally spat a curse as he kept his rigid gaze locked on Nack. There was also always the chance that even if Shadow made it to Nack in time, the match could inadvertently be dropped into the oil._

_The last option wasn't appealing by any measure. Shadow could chaos control them away, but without an emerald they could end up anywhere. Even underneath the ocean for all he knew._

_"Not so fast Stripes," Nack jeered at the stone faced hedgehog, "You and blue-boy there are going to sit tight or this whole place is going up like the fourth of July."_

_Shadow slowly rose despite the weasel's warning. He moved cautiously and slung Sonic's arm over his shoulder to heft the oblivious hedgehog to his feet._

_"You're planning on setting fire to this entire Zone?" Shadow asked with obvious disbelief, "I don't see how you could possibly escape the fires Nack. You love yourself far too much to risk it. You don't have the guts to set that match down."_

_"That's where you're wrong Black and Blue," Nack smirked wickedly and took his hat off from the top of his head. He dropped it into the sludgy waters without a care. Shadow's eyes followed the descent of the hat and watched with horrified disgust as the waters sucked it down below the surface without a trace._

_Nack wouldn't be getting that hat back. Shadow made a mental note to steer clear of the water if they survived this ordeal._

_"This is beyond you. Beyond me. Beyond all of us...!" He let out a bark of bitter laughter and the match slipped from his fingers. Shadow made an abortive attempt to jerk forward and catch the match, but with Sonic weighing him down there was no chance. He frantically gathered his chaos energy just as the match touched the greasy floor._

_In seconds all Shadow knew was heat, fire and darkness. _

_And then nothing at all._

Mary Sue typed up the finishing lines of her latest fanfic, a troubled sigh pulling from her lips. No. It wasn't good enough. The ending was choppy, the characters poorly written. Hell, she even chosen Nack as the big villain to kill off both Sonic and Shadow? Horrible! And she called herself a writer? She tapped her finger against the backspace and deleted the whole story from her hard drive with an expression of disgust painting her face.

She sighed and stumbled back onto her Sonic the Hedgehog comforter, grabbing a Tails plushie from a mound of others and curling around it. The Tails plushie was firmly squeezed as she wallowed in her self-pity.

"Why can't I get past this writers block?" Mary howled to the ceiling of her room. It was plastered with Sonic posters, as was every square inch of the room. Every corner of the room was decorated with some sort of Sonic paraphernalia. "How will SEGA ever listen to my ideas for games if I can't finish my manuscript?"

Sonic X cards were scattered across her desk and littering the floor. Games and their manuals laid open and used on the floor while the tangled heaps of cords and game systems took up the majority of her table space. A TV that was covered in Sonic stickers was situated in a corner and brightly lit, a game having been paused while Mary took a break to write her 'manuscript.'

But of course it wasn't her fault that the characters were so shallow, the story so bad, and the plot exhausted. No. It was SEGA's fault.

It was Sonic's fault

Mary whined and took up the controller so she could un-pause the game and beat up Chaos. She watched as Super Sonic blasted his way through the flooded city and raced his way up the destructive beasts' head. Chaos let out a shriek of pain and disappeared into a puddle of water.

She could beat this game backwards and forwards while she was blindfolded and upside down, Mary had played it that often. In her opinion, the last worthwhile Sonic game that had been created was Sonic Adventure 2, and even that game had been riddled with awful glitches.

The Sonic series was dying and anyone with two brain cells could see that. They had awful characters crammed into nearly every game, shallow plots, and awful scriptwriting. Mobius was practically a diseased wasteland now thanks to SEGA.

And only Mary Sue could fix it.

The blue hedgehog had overstayed his welcome. It was time for a change. For Mobius to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Mary snarled furiously at the screen as Chaos whipped Sonic back to the beginning of the level, breaking her concentration and making her start from scratch.

"Over and over again," She gritted out through clenched teeth. Tears of frustration pricked at her eyes and she threw the controller to the side. Mary lunged for her bed and clawed at her comforter set that had Sonic's face emblazoned on the blankets. Mary ripped them clean off the bed before scrambling towards her mounds of Sonic plushies.

She grabbed the closest, which just so happened to be Sonic. She gave the poor doll a brutal shake, a mad glint creeping into her eyes.

"You made me waste the last eighteen years of my life!" She screamed into the plushie's lifeless face, "With your lies of freedom! I've never been so chained down before in my life!"

She howled and threw Knuckles stuffed body into the mirror where he bounced off harmlessly and landed on the floor.

Mary shot to her desk with the hapless doll and snagged her pair of scissors out of her pencil boxes.

Her eyes gleamed madly, "You like your freedom so much?" She cackled with delight. Mary cut away at the plushies legs until she managed to saw them off. The blue legs fell in a tangled heap against the tabletop.

"Where will you run now Sonic?" She giggled.

Her gaze turned back to the rest of the plushies. The scissors glinted ominously.

"They all deserve to die. Mobius needs to be rebuilt from the ground up," Mary hissed over at the legless Sonic, "All of your little friends will die because of you Sonic! They're your faithful little servants until the very end, aren't they?"

Mary descended on the pile like a mad woman. Soon, the dolls were nothing more than tatters of fabric and bits of fluff.

Marry panted breathlessly as her carnage to the defenseless characters finally ceased. The scissors slipped from loose fingers and she let out a small sob as she bent over her work. Broken cries tore from her throat and tears dropped down onto the stuffing of the plushies. One of Amy's green, button eyes stared up at her.

"_Alright! Piece of Cake!_" A familiar voice laughed from behind her.

The sound of Sonic sent a shiver of unexplained fear through her, almost as if the hedgehog knew she had torn up his doll. She whirled around in terror, almost as if she had been set on fire. Mary's heart jumped to her throat as she looked for the source of Sonic's voice.

Her frantic gaze landed on the TV screen where she had left her game running.

Super Sonic had defeated Chaos and was floating on the winning screen with his usual cheeky grin. He floated there, for a moment before the ending cutscene began to roll.

"No!" Mary shrieked, unreasonably furious at the sight of Sonic's victory. How was this possible? Chaos should have killed Sonic! The hero should have gotten Game Over without her there to control him!

"No, no NO!" Mary screamed in rage, "I'm sick of this!"

The angry fan scooped up the controller and hurled it at the screen where it scuffed up the surface and clattered away. She snatched up a nearby lamp, overcome by her resentment. She reared back and threw the lamp as hard as she could at the screen. Immediately the TV shattered, smoked, and sparked. It set fire to the nearby game systems and Mary scrambled to get away.

Mary never saw how her feet had gotten tangled in the messy cords of her controllers was shocked when electricity raced up through her body.

She collapsed in a spasms, her limbs twitching of their own accord. The game system nearby sparked and a fire roared to life near her.

Mary was oblivious to all this as her body twitched one last time before laying still.

--::--

When Mary came around, she became vaguely aware of something burning. There were screams all around her and with some pain she managed to sit up, her body aching from the treatment she had put it through. Her eyes widened in shock as she didn't immediately recognize her surroundings.

Mary wasn't in her room.

She scrambled to her feet and stumbled towards the closest window where a crowd of people were looking out similarly.

"What's going on?" She slurred to the closest person.

He was an older man who was slightly balding. He looked over at Mary with wide eyes and pointed out the window with a shaking hand.

"It's the end of the world," His voice hitched with despair. His face was pale with terror and he turned his desolate gaze back towards the window.

Mary's eyes widened in shock as she looked out the window to see what had caused this man to fall into such a fit. Waters, rushing and wild were flooding the city below. Angry storm clouds, heavy with their loads loomed overhead and lightening struck from the sky.

Buildings were annihilated and people were screaming, running away in a desperate search to get to dry or higher land. Many were too slow and were caught by the currents. Mary could only watch with a sort of morbid fascination as they were mercilessly dragged under, never to be seen alive again.

Amongst all the turmoil stood the titanic figure of chaos itself. The god of Destruction, a figure Mary very well recognized from the video game she had been playing not five minutes ago. Chaos screeched His fury to the Heavens and Mary shrank back from the window in terror.

Chaos looked a ton less imposing when he was rendered with crappy graphics from the beginning of the decade.

The overwhelming fear was almost tangible and for a moment Marry was certain they were all going to die.

However, the cloud of fear was punctured when a woman cried out. She didn't scream in terror, but in hope.

"It's Sonic! He's come to save us!"

Almost instantaneously, the morale of the people shot through the roof and Mary had to do a double take. The fear was still there and strong, but it was overwhelmed by hope. Their faith in Sonic was infallible, and Mary thought for a moment that these people weren't the same fools who had been expecting their deaths a few seconds ago.

Mary rushed back to the window, her body going numb as she picked out the blue hedgehog standing confidently against Chaos.

The people began to cheer their hero on, but Mary made no move to join them. Her thoughts were too busy trying to wrap themselves around what was happening.

First Chaos, then Sonic? Mary could only watch numbly as Sonic transformed into his Golden form before her eyes.

Either she was having a really trippy dream, or all of this was real.

She was inclined to believe the latter.

This was real.

It was all real.

Mary smirked wickedly as the wheels in her head began to move. She was on Mobius. That meant she could start over new.

Or better yet... She could get even with the blue bastard that had stolen her life with his empty promises. Her eyes narrowed hatefully on the golden form of Sonic.

"Live today and fight tomorrow," Mary pressed her palm against the window, "Because one of these days, I'll be the one to kill Sonic the Hedgehog."

She pulled away and walked away from the crowd of people who were watching their savior fight with naïve eagerness.

She didn't need to watch. After all, Mary was Sonic's biggest fan. She knew what the outcome was.

--::--

_**Seven years Later**_

Sonic jumped off the tracks of the train leading to the Mystic Ruins and scratched his hand against his ear with a lazy yawn.

Tails' workshop was near the train so Sonic didn't have far to run. Unfortunately. He was in the mood for a long trek. Not that that was a break from the norm, but maybe he could pester Shadow for a race later. If that didn't work than maybe Knuckles would be up for getting his butt handed to him in a good ol' fashioned brawl. Sonic sniggered at the thought of the cranky Guardian.

It would have to wait though, Sonic had plans for everyone today. He had been painstakingly plotting and planning for a week now. It had taken many bribes and a date with Amy to get everything organized, but he had finally done it.

Sonic jogged up to Tails' workshop and rapped on the door sharply.

"Hey bud! You in?" He called, "I brought those whachamacallits you wanted!"

Tails opened the door to Sonic and quirked an eye ridge with amusement at the other's loud greeting. He laughed at his brother's pronunciation and rolled his eyes, "You mean the heat resistant drill bits?" He asked.

"Yeah, whatever. Those things," Sonic grinned at the younger fox and zipped inside the workshop, settling the small box down on his brother's desk, "Did I get the right kind?"

Tails flipped the hatch on the box and opened it, his namesakes twitching with excitement as he looked over the bits, "They're perfect, thanks Sonic!"

The blue hedgehog ruffled his quills and rubbed his nose, pleased that he had gotten the right equipment for Tails, "No sweat bud, Happy Birthday!"

Some kids wanted a game station for their birthdays, others wanted puppies.

Tails wanted a jet propulsion water-resistant battle suit.

And he could build one if he wanted to.

Go figure.

Sonic ruffled the fur on top of Tails' head as he saw a telling glint enter the fox's eyes, clearly showing that the fox was more than ready to run around and start tinkering with his new 'toy.' Sonic quickly snagged the vulpine by the scarf that was tied around his throat, stopping Tails' in mid-step as he made to run off with the bits.

"Uh, uh. Where do you think you're running off to?" Sonic rolled his eyes, "You can play with your new gear later. I'm taking you out so we can celebrate your birthday in style."

Tails turned big blue eyes on Sonic, giving the hedgehog his best kicked-puppy look, "Awww, c'mon Sonic. I've been dying to try readjusting the alignment on the Tornados propulsion and--"

Whatever else it was that Tails wanted to say to make his point was immediately destroyed by Sonic's short attention span and his inability to understand any of the techno-jargon the fox spouted off. Instead Sonic simply nodded and watched Tails intently, green eyes glazing over slightly from Tails' explanation. Once the fox finished, Sonic shook his head and blinked in an attempt to dispel some of his confusion.

"Since I have no idea what you just said, I'm going to pretend that I care while I happily drag you off to make you enjoy your birthday," Sonic replied as Tails groaned his defeat.

The fox had to admit that there was no stopping Sonic once he set his mind on one thing. There was no chance he could be persuaded to slow down or listen to reason. Tails smiled fondly as his older brother dragged him hurriedly out of the workshop, making the fox stow the drill bits in a bag by his side.

He should make an attempt to appreciate the effort Sonic took to set up his birthday.

After all, it wasn't every day he turned 15.

Fire, explosions, and gunfire. The bitter scent of gunpowder mixed with heavy smoke filled the air, choking those who were trapped in its embrace.

The remnants of party favors and streamers were lying tattered on the ground. A birthday cake was smashed on the ground, utterly ruined from the destruction.

Screams echoed throughout the zone as Mobius' heroes shifted through the wreckage to look for survivors. Knuckles the echidna was pulling heavier beams of housing off of those trapped underneath, his red fur and quills almost completely masked in a layer of dark grimy soot.

Violet eyes widened in shock as a snatch of cobalt fur trapped underneath the debris caught the Guardian's attention.

"Tails!" He shouted overhead at the fox flying overhead, "Come give me a hand with this, I think Sonic is stuck under here!"

The fox quickly landed beside Knuckles and looked worriedly at the pile of debris, "Sonic! Can you hear me?" He called out desperately.

There was a muffled noise down below, signaling that Sonic was indeed conscious. They couldn't understand him, but Tails imagined his brother had said something along the lines of, "Get this thing off of me already!"

"When I lift this up, you drag his spiny blue butt out of there," Knuckles barked out instructions to Tails who nodded alertly. The echidna wrapped large hands around the metal beam on top of the pile of debris and lifted it up with a small grunt. Tails quickly dug around the fallen pieces of wood and mortar until he unearthed Sonic.

The cobalt hedgehog, now largely a light shade of gray, was curled up in a ball, his body shielding two cubs that had gotten trapped alongside with him. He uncurled slightly and looked over his shoulder with an easy smile at Tails, "What took you guys so long?" He grinned and easily hopped out of the ditch with the two kids perched in his arms.

Knuckles let out an irritated growl as he let the beam fall back down onto the pile, relieved despite his obvious annoyance that his blue friend was alright. "Sorry that we weren't running by your speed." Knuckles rolled his eyes, "But how'd you get trapped underneath there in the first place?"

"I got a bit sidetracked with the kids," Sonic shrugged. "Where are the others?"

Tails checked on the cubs Sonic had rescued and looked up at his brother, "They managed to get out of the way right before the gunfire started." He said quietly, "I think I saw Amy taking Cream and Cheese back into Station Square. They're going to alert GUN."

What had first started off as a fun birthday party off of Emerald Coast had quickly turned into a nightmare. Tails couldn't begin to understand what had gone wrong. They were all having a great time pranking each other, swapping stories and just having fun. Sonic had even managed to drag Knuckles off of Angel Island to wish Tails' a Happy Birthday and give him a present.

How Sonic had managed it, Tails would never know, but he was willing to bet it had involved bribing the Guardian with something shiny and very valuable.

But then some old time SWATbots had showed up, followed by Badniks and a small army of Eggman's ridiculous looking clown robots. They had open fired on the party, setting off charges of explosions around the area and blowing up nearby buildings and houses that had been unfortunate enough to be built on the beach.

The party had gone to hell as soon as they appeared.

The attack had been completely out of nowhere.

The group had torn through the robots quickly, but the damage had been done. They could only hope that the rest of Station Square had fared better than their side.

Knuckles growled and his violet gaze darted about warily, "It seems like Eggman's up to trouble as usual."

"Yeah," Sonic tapped his foot as they looked around the burning wreckage. Everyone looked as if they had come out mostly unscathed, if not a bit shaken. It seemed as if they were lucky enough to scrape through the ordeal without any casualties. Sonic breathed out in relief, "He must be going through some budget cuts if he's using old school SWATbots and Badniks."

The blue hedgehog halted his train of thought as he spotted his quiet brother looking around the carnage with clear dismay. A sad smile twitched at Sonic's lips and he thumped his hand against Tails' shoulder, "I'm sorry the birthday was a bust bro, I'll make it up to you though."

Tails waved off Sonic's apology and looked at his brother fiercely, "I don't mind the birthday Sonic, I'm just upset that Eggman nearly killed everyone here!"

Sonic looked at his brother and patted his head gently, "The doc has been pretty quiet as of late, but don't worry bro. We're going to track him down and trash whatever scheme he's cooking up now, same as always."

He winked at his brother and crouched down to look the frightened cubs in the eye, "Knux and I are going to go look for more people, so my bud Tails' here is going to help you find your parents, okay?" Sonic smiled winningly at them. They nodded shyly, hero-worship clear on their faces.

Tails only rolled his eyes, remembering a time when he had been exactly the same way. Sonic had always been, and probably always would be his hero. But the time where Tails always followed Sonic was long gone, as of late Tails had been beginning to fight his own battles and grow up in his own way.

He smothered a laugh as he took the cubs' hands and smiled at them as he began to lead them down the beach and away from Sonic, "Can you guys tell me where your parents are?"

The kids nodded happily before they dragged Tails with a surprising amount of strength for a couple of five year olds further down the beach. They dragged him quite the distance, so far in fact that Tails was certain he really couldn't see the plumes of smoke from the explosion down by the pier any longer. Sonic was far out of sight.

However soon enough, they dragged Tails towards a frantic human woman at the northern most tip of the beach. She was looking desperately under tables and screaming out two names, presumably those of her children. The kids broke away from the fox and rushed over to their mother, hugging her legs tightly.

Smiling at her, Tails wandered up to the woman who had immediately fallen to her knees to embrace her kids. "Hey, are you their mom?" He asked with a smile.

"Oh yes!" The woman sobbed, kissing her kids heads and patting through their hair to check if they were hurt, "Thank you so much for bringing them back to me! I was out of my mind with worry!"

Tails waved off the thanks and smiled, "It was no big deal. Your kids seemed to know where you were anyway. I was just the delivery boy."

He turned to leave, pleased that the kids had been reunited with his mother. The woman was extraordinarily lucky to have been standing up in this section of the beach; it appeared to have remained largely untouched by the attack. Tails frowned curiously as he looked back at them.

The kids had probably dragged him a mile or more down the beach. How come this woman had been so far away from her kids? They had gotten caught up in a hailstorm of explosions and gunfire. This woman was fairly neglectful. Something wasn't meshing right and he stopped, hesitating on leaving the kids with the woman.

"Is there something wrong Miles?" The woman asked softly, looking calmly at the fox. Her face was dry and there was no longer any sign of desperation relief on her face. What was even stranger was how her two kids seemed to be remaining absolutely still.

In fact, since they hugged her, they hadn't moved at all. They barely looked as if they were breathing.

Tails felt a bolt of alarm shoot through him and his eyes widened as he looked at the woman. He took a hesitant step back and looked at her warily, "How'd you know my name?"

The woman smiled coldly. The curve of her lips barely moved at all and it sent a chill down Tails' spine. "Who in the whole wide world doesn't know the Great Miles?"

"I prefer Tails," The fox narrowed his eyes. He could feel his hackles beginning to rise, warning him that something foul was in the air. His tails twitched and he considered taking to the skies to get the heck out of dodge while the going was good.

Apparently, that wasn't the right thing to say. The woman's face, so calm and serene had transformed into an ugly mask of rage. "Tails?" She hissed furiously.

"Your name is Miles! Not Tails, like what that blue, mutant freak calls you!" She shrieked furiously, startling Tails with her outburst. He looked at her in alarm and swallowed hard, wondering if this woman was just a bit unstable.

There was no stopping her once she started, "Miles Prower! It was a clever name based off of speed -- Miles Per Hour! How could anyone want less, but they gave you the unoriginal name of 'Tails,' pathetic!"

Tails put his hands up calmingly and took a step back, "Alright then, just call me Miles." He said as soothingly as possible. He continued to walk backwards, not wanting to enrage the woman anymore than he already had.

"Where do you think you're going Miles?" The woman hissed softly, abruptly regaining her composure all at once. Her eyes were still dark with rage, but she made no move to stop him, "I haven't properly thanked you for returning my children yet."

"Yes you have," Tails insisted as he continued to back up. This lady was beginning to unnerve him and he was just eager to get away from her.

The woman ignored him and settled her hands on the sides of one of her children's heads. Tails watched silently, confused by what she was doing.

She jerked her hands and snapped the neck of the child. Tails shouted in horror and rushed forward to stop her from killing her other kid.

The child fell over in a crumbled heap and Tails fell to his knees near her body. "Why did you kill her?" He demanded as he feverishly attempted to pick up a pulse from her broken neck.

His fingers glide across the soft skin and tears stung as his eyes at the woman's brutality. She killed her own child without as much as a thought. He glared at her furiously as she drew her other unresisting child to the side, presumably to do the same.

Tails began to climb to his feet to stop her but abruptly fell over, stumbling over cumbersome feet that refused to cooperate. He gurgled in confusion as suddenly heavy eyelids began to close.

What...?

What was happening to him?

A soft hiss by his side caught his attention and Tails turned his sleepy gaze to see what had made the noise.

He froze as his gaze landed on the child. A tiny, barely noticeable hole had been drilled into the child's neck and was slowly leaking a colorless, odorless gas.

A robot.

Tails looked up at the smug looking woman in horror as the world began to fade to black around the edges of his vision. He collapsed in the sand and watched as the woman fit a gas mask over her face and strode over to him. Cold realization struck him as he stared into those cold, calculating eyes that were nearly covered.

She had planned this whole thing.

"Who... are you?" Tails slurred as he struggled to hold on to the last strands of consciousness.

The woman bent down and dug her fingers into the fur on the top of Tails' head. She yanked it back, forcing the fox to look up at her. Glazed over blue eyes were narrowed with pain, but Tails did his best to remain silent.

The woman smirked at him wickedly, contempt drawn on every line in her face.

"My name is Mary-Sue," She purred softly, "And I'm your biggest fan."

--::--

_**So yeah. Here we are, the end of the first chapter. I hope you enjoyed it. Drop me a review, feedback WILL make me write more because it's always nice to know someone is reading the story.**_


	2. Create New File?

_**Oh why hello there. Another update of PAtC. Enjoy my lovelies.**_

_**Not much else to say, except that I've been reading King Arthur so if the language is a bit formal that's because Sir Lancelot crawled into my head and died there.**_

_**Oh yeah. And I self-beta'd this chapter because I'm a loser ;O;**_

--::--

When Commander Towers had called in Shadow for his newest assignment, the Ultimate Life form hadn't been in the best of moods. The ebony hedgehog had recently returned from a rather tiresome stakeout mission in the desert. 

It was so recent in fact, Shadow had yet to file a report much less sharpen a pencil to _write_ the damn thing.

He was annoyed.

He had known that within a few days the location of Eggman's base would have been revealed. All he needed was a bit more time to home in on the specific location. However, he had been called back – his request for additional time denied and the sour taste of failure repugnant on his tongue. Now, to add insult to injury he had been assigned a new mission with hardly any rest.

Not that he, the Ultimate life form needed rest, but it still annoyed him that he couldn't even get a power nap in.

That, and he was still picking sand out of uncomfortable places.

Towers called this mission an emergency. It had been the reason behind drawing him away from his previous mission. Apparently a horde of Eggman's robots had attacked the coast by Station Square, rendering Shadow's search for the doctor useless.

Another annoyance.

Angry that his time had been wasted, Shadow could only seethe with annoyance as he recalled the parts where he was being sent were Sonic's stomping grounds. So not only would the problem undoubtedly have been taken care of by the time Shadow arrived, he would see his blue rival again.

Sonic the Hedgehog.

Shadow did _not_ want to see him.

Shadow grumbled as he pulled open the door to the GUN vehicle and hopped out onto the sandy beach. He looked down at his feet and let out a low groan. Sand. More. Damn. _Sand_. His skin itched under his fur at the sight of it.

If he saw so much more as a _grain_ of this crap after the mission, he'd go to every desert and chaos blast the hell out of them.

Breathing evenly, Shadow took off down the beach, kicking up a wave of sand as his jetshoes ignited in a fiery stream. In the distance he spotted a familiar fleck of blue perched on a twisted piece of metal and angled his body in that direction.

Might as well get the greetings over with.

His thoughts drifted back to his blue rival of their own accord. A sudden surge of warmth struck Shadow firmly in his chest and he had to swallow thickly around the lump which had decided to appear in his throat.

The same strange feelings always happened whenever he thought of Sonic or was near him. They were warm and soft. Buzzing pleasantly in the back of Shadow's head like the constant stream of chaos energy that flowed through his body. It was like the two rivals somehow had a bond Shadow could never figure out – and he disliked to even think about it.

Shadow couldn't quite describe what the connection he had with Sonic was. Since the time they had both turned Super aboard the ARK, Shadow couldn't shake the feeling that he and the blue hero had somehow connected. Through the beams of light, the chaotic power had they flowing freely between them, and the lumbering form of the Final Hazard, Shadow suspected that both he and Sonic had been bound to one another in some way. They had felt through one another, sensed each other's lagging energy and instinctively bolstered one another's spirits.

Even now, Shadow thought he could still feel traces of Sonic's familiar chaos energy sparking through the back of his mind.

The ebony racer roughly shoved the thought aside as ridiculous. There was little point dwelling on odd nuances when work was to be done. He slid gracefully to a stop in front of the very object of his thoughts, the sand shifting underneath Shadow's jetshoes even as he cut them off.

A flicker of surprise flashed over Sonic's eyes and Shadow couldn't completely suppress the feeling of satisfaction for catching the blue racer off guard. It was a short lived victory as Sonic quickly recovered from the shock of Shadow's sudden appearance and sprang to his feet.

"Hey Stripes!" Sonic grinned in greeting, "Come for the party?"

"Not exactly," Shadow replied and quirked an eyeridge as he cast his gaze around the destroyed beach.

It must have been some party he missed.

"What's the situation here?" Shadow continued, keeping his eyes glued on the destruction and never once turning to look at the other.

Sonic gave a snort of laughter and Shadow had to bite his tongue to prevent himself from snarling with annoyance at the other.

"Ha, it figures you and GUN would show up when all the heavy lifting was done! Thanks for the help slowpoke."

Shadow fought for patience and merely gave Sonic a bone chilling glare.

Sonic laughed it off.

"Alright, alright Mr. Angst," Sonic held up his hands in defense and grinned at the sour look on Shadow's face, "I'll give you your mission briefing Master Chief."

Not for the first time, the Ultimate Life form was left wondering why he had been assigned to this damnable assignment. Dealing with the infuriating Sonic was the last thing he wanted to do and it seemed as though Commander Towers was enjoying putting Shadow through this cruel and unusual punishment.

Shadow did not want to be here, especially with the thoughts he had recently been harboring about the other racer. Shadow didn't need the real, physical person to tease him when his mind had been doing a damn fine job of that all by itself – thank you very much.

"Knuckles and I did a full sweep of the beach, thrashing Eggman's robots and pulling out survivors. There were a few scrapes here and there but no one was seriously injured. "

Sonic scratched a hand through cobalt quills and cast his impatient gaze towards the sky, "Knux already ran off to slobber all over the Master Emerald, so now I'm waiting for Tails to come back from dropping off a few kids."

"He's been gone for about an hour now. How long is it _going_ to take?" His foot tapped against the ground in a high speed blur, causing a small wave of sand to be kicked up and hit Shadow's shins in the process.

The dark racer's scowl deepened as the sand crawled down his legs and filled his socks and shoes. He took a pointed step back to avoid further spray.

Shadow brushed the sand from his pelt and looked at Sonic dryly, "I'd imagine that he already left the area. GUN did a full perimeter sweep and saw no sign of Tails," ruby eyes flicked up to emerald, "We caught sight of Knuckles leaving and he promptly stuck a few grunts heads in the sand when they tried to stop him from returning to the island."

Sonic laughed outright at that but soon returned his expectant gaze towards the skies, "Still it's weird for Tails to leave without saying bye – or even without telling me if the kids found their mom alright."

Before Shadow could reply, a shout from further up the beach caught his attention. A black ear swiveled in that direction and from his peripheral vision Shadow could see Sonic straighten up with wary curiosity.

Almost immediately a beeping noise sounded on Shadow's wrist and the dark hedgehog opened the link in his communicator, "Shadow here. What's the situation?"

There was a static filled pause and Shadow waited impatiently for the message to get across.

"There's a body sir, up the beach," The voice of a grunt, young and anxious drifted through the speaker.

Shadow swore softly at the news and turned to look back at Sonic, wondering if the blue hero intended to follow him to find out what was going on. Ruby eyes blinked in surprise as he saw that the other was already gone. A blue blur, gust of wind, and pile of sand swirling around Shadow's ankles – much to his dismay – were the only signs that the hedgehog had ever been there.

Apparently Sonic to investigate for himself.

Withholding a long suffering sigh, Shadow tore off after Sonic.

By the time Shadow caught up with his rival – a three second head start really _did_ matter between the two of them – Sonic was standing absolutely still, green eyes focused on the unmoving body of a little girl.

Blue ears flicked as they heard Shadow's approach but Sonic made no other move to show he had heard the other.

"Looks like the hero missed one," A nearby grunt said carelessly.

Shadow could see how Sonic's quills flexed with minuet grief but the blue racer said nothing, acting as if he hadn't heard the comment. He hadn't been fast enough to save this one. His speed had failed him. Shadow could tell the guilt tore Sonic down to his very soul.

"Show the deceased some respect Private," Shadow said flatly.

He broke apart from the gathered group and moved to gently drape a nearby towel – which he had snagged off a turned over table – over the girls face. He didn't do this out of kindness for Sonic or out of true grief. He had done his share of grieving to last a lifetime already. Rather, he moved out of sympathy. He knew what it was like to feel responsible for another's death.

Furthermore, the sight of a little girl's dead body was. . . haunting.

As Shadow set the cloth over the girl's face, his fingertips accidentally brushed against her skin. He had to suppress a shiver at the sensation of ice sliding against the short fur on his fingers. Odd, Shadow thought, her body shouldn't be so stiff and cold. She hadn't been dead long enough for Rigor Mortis to set in.

Shadow frowned in surprise at the feeling and drew away the fabric from the girls' face to further inspect her. He was using his intuition and experience to go off of a gut instinct.

"Shadow," Sonic's voice came from the side. It sounded somewhat strained, setting a gloomy edge to the normally cheerful voice, "What're you doing?"

Shadow ignored Sonic in favor of checking the body a second time. He took the girls head in his hands and twisted it to the side gingerly. His eyes widened as a small incision on the back of her neck drew his attention.

What the...?

Shadow's eyes narrowed and he peered closer. However, as soon as he drew close, something sparked dangerously close to his face and he was forced to draw sharply away. Shadow growled and with no care, he turned the girl over. His actions promptly elected a yelp of surprise from the spectators.

"Hey Faker!" Sonic darted over towards Shadow, "What happened to 'respecting the dead'?" He demanded, his quills flexing with agitation.

Shadow, noting that Sonic looked about ready to kick his face in, raised a hand to the other to halt him.

"That would be the case if she was actually dead," Shadow said without missing a beat.

That bit of news stopped Sonic in his tracks.

"What did you say?" the blue racer breathed in shock and dropped down to his knees beside his rival. He edged over to the body.

"See for yourself," Shadow pointed to the small tear he had found.

Sure enough, when Sonic peered closely at the neck, he saw what Shadow had. A sparking wire poked out from the back of the throat, leading way to a series of complex wires and electronics.

"She's a robot!" Sonic said happily, his breaking out in a smile, "I never thought I'd be so happy to see one of Eggman's bots!"

While Sonic was inquisitively poking at the body, Shadow backed away to brush himself clean of sand. Sonic had once again managed to spray him with half the beach in his haste to get to the girl. A muscle in Shadow's muzzle twitched with irritation.

"This robot is actually pretty amazing! Look at how realistic this is! Tails would have a field day with this," Sonic crowed.

As Shadow moved away, his foot collided with something metallic and hard buried in the sand. He ignored Sonic's happy prattling and bent down to collect the item. When GUN's choppers arrived, they had probably buried the object when they landed.

Shadow straightened up and began to clean the metal object off, revealing it to be a case of some sort. Frowning, he uncovered an orange insignia stamped on to the side. Two tails, curled around one another in a familiar design. Shadow's eyes widened and he opened the case to expose a row of drill bits neatly organized by size.

This was clearly Tails'...

"Hey Shadow..." Sonic began again, his voice turning soft and questioning. Almost as if the racer had realized something, "I think I know this girl..."

He turned around to look at Shadow, "Yeah, I think I sent Tails with her and her brother to find their mother-..." He trailed off as he spotted the case cradled in Shadow's hands.

"That's the present I got Tails," Sonic said slowly, "He's been wanting those drill-things forever." Green eyes sharpened on his rival, "Where did you get that?" He demanded.

Wordlessly, Shadow pointed to his feet nearby. Sonic quickly abandoned the girl and looked over the place carefully.

Sonic felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach and he looked wildly over at Shadow, "You don't suppose--..."

"The Doctor has him?" Shadow shrugged and shook his head, "Possibly." However Shadow thought that was highly unlikely. Taking prisoners was never Eggman's style. The doctor seemed to prefer overwhelming his opponents than subtly kidnapping them to use for whatever purposes. Shadow didn't even see Eggman using Tails as a bargaining chip.

Seeing that Sonic's body was tensed in a racers stance, Shadow's hand shot out to grab his rival's arm to stop him before he sped blindly off. He grabbed the blue racer in the nick of time, causing Sonic to take off and land on his ass in a rather comical manner.

However, Shadow's amusement didn't last long as Sonic climbed back to his feet, rubbing his tailbone. As expected, Sonic whirled on Shadow, green eyes blazing with anger.

"What did you do _that _for?" He demanded furiously. Shadow narrowed his eyes, feeling the eyes of GUN soldiers on them. The Ultimate life form grabbed Sonic's arm again and dragged him away so they could get in a private word without running the risk of being overheard.

"Have you yet considered the possibility that Tails could have just gone back home and simply dropped the drill bits by mistake?" Shadow hissed and pressed the case back into Sonic's hands to make his point.

"And if he didn't go back?" Sonic shot back, "I could lose time by running back to the Mystic Ruins to check."

"It would only take you a second," Shadow snapped in response, "Or have you somehow managed to break both your legs in the thirty seconds it took to walk over here?"

Sonic stowed the drill bits carefully away in his upper quills before he reached out and gripped Shadow's shoulders tightly, "I don't know how long he's already been gone!" Sonic growled, "I'm going after them _now_!"

Shadow gave the blue hedgehog a bland look and shoved the other's hands off of him, "And pray tell me Sonic because I'm so curious -- _Where _would you be going?"

For a moment Sonic could only stare at Shadow before he deflated a bit under Shadow's logic. However he was only dismayed for a second, because his ears promptly perked up and he looked at Shadow with a grin, "Well _you're_ going to tell me where I'm going!"

"Pardon?" A glare.

Waving off Shadow's glare, Sonic merely grinned at the other and slung his arm over the other hedgehog's shoulders. "You have access to GUN's files Shadz, you have to know where ol' Egghead's lair is!"

Shadow narrowed his eyes but this time didn't move from under Sonic's arm. He found the added weight somewhat comforting and Sonic would just replace it anyway. Shadow looked into the expectant green eyes less than a foot away and felt a lump knot in his throat.

"That information is classified," Shadow intoned dryly, trying to ignore the flash of disappointment in Sonic's eyes as he denied him, "It would be against my orders to tell you that information—"

Sonic deflated again.

"—But I would see nothing remiss if I were to be _followed_ to his base," Shadow muttered, unable to resist the kicked-puppy look Sonic was feeding him. He mentally groaned as he saw Sonic's ears perk and his face brighten. Great. Somehow Shadow had been suckered on going on another mad quest courtesy of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Fantastic.

"Alright then!" Sonic grinned broadly, snagging Shadow's arm and forcibly dragging him away, "Let's get going!"

The ebony hedgehog growled softly as Sonic pulled his resisting rival by the arm. The Ultimate Life form took a little comfort in the fact that he didn't know the exact location of Eggman's lair, just the baser coordinates. When his companion found that little fact out, it would undoubtedly drive Sonic in circles for a while, but at least it would serve as entertainment.

Not wanting to waste any more time than had already been ruthlessly squandered by GUN, Shadow tapped on his communicator and keyed into Rouge's frequency. Soon, his partner's sultry voice drifted across the line and Shadow sighed with relief that she had actually decided to pick up for once.

"Hey hon, to what do I owe this pleasure?" Rouge hummed over the frequency.

"I need a favor."

There was a pause, followed quickly by a telling sigh, "Of course you do Shadow. What can I do you for?"

Shadow hummed and looked over at his wrist, "I'm currently being abducted by Sonic who is too hard headed to follow my advice and is instead taking me against my will on a wild chase."

"My my, he's certainly doing a poor job of kidnapping you if he's letting you talk on your communicator," Rouge teased, "I don't hear to fighting back. Sounds like you're _willing_ to go with Sonic hon."

Ignoring his partner's comment, Shadow continued, "I need you to check in any places Tails might be or is known to go. He's missing so we're going to look for him." Shadow waited for a moment while Rouge listened intently.

"Of course Shadow, anything else you need?" Rouge asked, a small note of worry creeping into her voice. Shadow resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Why was everyone getting their tail knotted up in such a small issue? The fox cub was missing, sure, but he'd turn up. This wasn't a national crisis.

He smirked slightly as he looked over at the destroyed beach, a sudden idea coming to him, "Yeah Rouge. There's one more thing you can do for me."

"What is it?" She asked curiously.

"Write up my last two reports and file them for me," Shadow smirked, "Since I'm so busy rescuing someone who doesn't need to be rescued, I'm not going to have the time."

Sonic snorted at the comment but continued to drag Shadow away, pointedly ignoring the conversation. His ear twitched as he heard Rouge's snappy and profanity riddled reply before Shadow promptly closed the link.

"Now, shall we?" Shadow nodded his head over towards the west side of the city.

Sonic grinned fiercely at Shadow and nodded, sinking into a crouch, "I'll race you to—" He stopped and looked over his shoulder at Shadow, "—where is it that we're going?"

Shadow smirked and took off, ignoring the startled yelp from behind him, "Desert Zone!" He called over his shoulder as he tore off in a blaze of chaos energy, with Sonic hot on his heels in pursuit.

--::--

Reviews are cherished.


	3. Choose Your Character

Hopefully I fixed things with my computer. Sorry for the slow update to anyone reading this. Updates are weekly...ish.

Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic and I make no profit from his abuse/pairing him up with men.

--::--

Shadow and Sonic were racing through one of the deep forest zones. Both hedgehogs wove sharply around trees and thick branches without so much as missing a beat.

Shadow grabbed a hold of a nearby vine, using his momentum from his run to swing his body around a massive tree that was blocking the path. Sonic neatly hopped along its heavy branches and met Shadow on the opposite side. Both took off again without a word being exchanged between them.

Sonic didn't have to ask Shadow where they were going, the ebony hedgehog had already said the desert and that was still a few zones away. Sonic couldn't help but notice Shadow didn't look at all happy about going to the desert but didn't ask why. His rival was perpetually cranky over _something_; Sonic didn't take it personally so he figured the desert wouldn't either.

Green eyes slanted towards the dark form moving beside him. Shadow seemed distracted, so Sonic figured the other wouldn't care about being quietly observed. The ultimate life form moved as silently as his namesake, the only sound coming from him being the occasional 'swish' from his hover skates. He had to squint to see the other, as Shadow's fur was beginning to blend in with the darkness of the forest. The sun was setting and Sonic found it was growing harder and harder to see Shadow.

Only the soft glow from the lingering trails of chaos energy illuminated the dark hedgehog. Shadow was either too caught up in his thoughts and hadn't noticed how dark it had gotten, or the Ultimate life form got bragging rights about having Ultimate eyesight. The latter of which Sonic found unlikely seeing that Shadow was technically a hedgehog and their eyesight was mediocre at best.

But what did he know? Sonic was just a Not-Ultimate-Life-form.

Hmph.

"Hey Shads," Sonic piped up, knowing he needed to get the other's attention after he had to swerve to narrowly avoid a tree.

Shadow's ears flicked to show that he was listening but his gaze was still far away. Sonic figured Shadow was busy having a flashback or something, so he decided to have mercy on his rival and be quick. After all, Shadow certainly seemed to love his haunting mid-life crisis flashbacks, it would be a crime against humanity should Sonic disturb Shadow from whatever disillusioned fantasy he was currently having.

"It's getting pretty dark out here," Sonic continued, stating the obvious. Green eyes lifted to the heavy canopy overhead. He could see snatched of the night sky peeking through the foliage, a dusky orange bleeding through the leaves to expose the dying sun, "We should set up camp for the night. It won't be safe to run in the dark." Especially if Sonic had no idea where the hell Shadow was. He didn't want to get a chaos spear to the face because he accidentally ran Shadow off a ravine or something equally ridiculous.

Sonic was relieved when Shadow gave a nod of consent and they both began to gradually slow their pace until they stopped near a small outcrop of rocks that edged around a Cliffside. They found a cave in the Cliffside that could serve as shelter for the night and ducked inside.

They decided since no one was trying to _immediately_ kill them then it would be safe enough to build a small fire. They scattered and began to gather wood and underbrush that could burn easily. Soon they had a merry fire going and the two hedgehog picked seats on either side of it, once more lapsing into silence.

Sonic pulled out a chili dog he had ordered in Station Square and pulled off the foil. As soon as the dog was free, Sonic promptly began to devour his treat. Shadow's muzzle wrinkled with disgust and he turned up his nose at the gooey mass of beans, meat, cheese, and only Chaos knew what else.

Sonic happily ignored Shadow's dislike for his favorite food and looked over at his grumpy partner, "Want some?" He offered, holding out the food. Sonic knew that if Shadow just gave the chili dog a taste that the grouchy hedgehog would love it.

"I'd rather lick sewage soaked shards of glass," Shadow replied blandly without missing a beat. Then, almost as if it was an afterthought, he added a quiet 'No thank you' at the end.

"Oh well, more for me," Sonic grinned and polished off the rest of his food, "But if you're really hungry, I'm sure I can hook you up with Mario. He spends a lot of time hanging out in the sewers; I bet he can find that glass for you."

Shadow gave Sonic a poisonous glare, to which the hero happily ignored. Sonic crumpled up his wrapped and tossed it into Shadow's pack as there were no garbage cans around. This earned him yet _another_ murderous glare from the cranky Shadow, but the ebony hedgehog didn't comment on the gesture. He obviously disliked litterers more than Sonic.

Instead he quirked an eyeridge at the blue hero and Sonic thought he might have imagined the corner of Shadow's mouth twitching with amusement.

_Wow, I have one heck of an imagination._ Sonic thought to himself with a quiet snort.

They both lapsed into silence again -- or rather Sonic did as Shadow hadn't been saying anything to begin with -- taking turns poking at the fire with nearby sticks to keep it going.

Sonic stared into the fire, his thoughts going numb as he watched it dance in slow arcs through the air. He could feel Tails' case digging into his back against the cave wall. Sonic had taken it with him when they left the beach, stowing the drill bits carefully into his quills. He hadn't told Shadow that he had taken them. Knowing the other, Shadow probably would have wanted him to turn them into GUN for evidence.

GUN. Sonic had enough run-ins with them to last several lifetimes. It seemed like there was always something breaking out loose from the pits of Hell to wreck havoc on Mobius. There was constantly a Monster of the Week to hurt and maim thousands of people, and it was usually up to Sonic to tear them down a notch. Sonic had yet to find the use of GUN. It seemed like the only thing they ever did was shoot at any creature that moved around them, the trigger happy morons. It was hard for Sonic to obey GUN's rules when he didn't have much respect for them.

He appreciated that they helped, but in most cases they just added to the body count. They were more people for him to worry about.

Excluding Team Dark.

In most cases they were a welcome sight when Sonic was in a tight squeeze. He could always count on Shadow to back him up...

Sonic jolted at the realization that he had excluded both Omega and Rouge. He quickly backtracked and rubbed his hand through his quills nervously. Sonic meant he could always count on _Team Dark_ to back him up...!

Right?

But on that train of thought... Sonic's eyes drifted over towards the dark racer. Shadow wasn't looking at him anymore and instead had his crimson gaze turned outside, watching the entrance vigilantly. Shadow was a bit of a hard ass when it came to following the rules GUN set. He followed his mission objectives to the letter and fought to have the highest success rate that was physically possible.

Sonic doubted Shadow worked so hard out of any real respect he harbored for GUN, especially considering his rocky history with the military, but he did it because he honestly believed GUN could help save the world.

He didn't understand the dark hedgehog all that well, despite the fact that Sonic knew him for about six years. He knew Shadow was ruthless when it came to doing what he felt was right. Shadow had no problem with blurring the line of morality that Sonic had carefully toed around all his life. He crossed back and forth between the boundaries of right and wrong, good and evil, and hero and villain until he found the place where he belonged: GUN.

Shadow saw things in shades of grey.

Sonic saw things in black or white.

They were two entirely different characters.

Tails' case pinched at his back when Sonic shifted, causing his train of thought to immediately screech to a halt. Sonic had to swallow thickly past a lump in his throat and his heart hammered against his chest. _Tails..._

His brother was gone. Taken by his arch nemesis for what, Sonic couldn't even begin to fathom the reason.

But GUN knew where Eggman was. Shadow did.

Something twitched at Sonic's mind and he frowned slightly. A sudden thought struck him that had his quills flexing in irritation.

Say what he wanted about GUN, they were anything but inefficient. They always attempted to apprehend criminals as quickly as possible to minimize destruction. Why hadn't GUN tried to stop Eggman before Tails had been captured?

A rush of anger struck Sonic squarely in the chest and he kept his drilling gaze on the oblivious agent in front of him.

"So why do you know where Eggman's hanging out anyway?" Sonic asked quietly, keeping his voice as light and carefree as he could.

Shadow's ear swiveled in his direction but the dark hedgehog didn't turn around to look at him.

"Well GUN finds that it is useful to know the whereabouts of a madman who tries to take over the world every couple of months," Shadow replied simply.

Sonic snorted and rolled his eyes at the response. He picked up a nearby stick and poked at the fire, never once pulling his gaze away from Shadow, "That doesn't answer my question though. Why do _you_ know where Eggman's base is?"

Still somewhat upset, Sonic puffed himself up in an imitation of a military man, mocking a certain commander's voice since he had heard it so often, "That's information on a need to know basis! Isn't it?"

Sonic was rewarded with smirk pulling up at the corner of Shadow's lips. Obviously Sonic's impersonation of Commander Tower's was entirely too accurate for the apathetic hedgehog to outright ignore.

"Since I'm the one providing the information, I don't see why you should question where I got it from," Shadow turned towards Sonic, finally dragging his attention away from the forest. He paused when he spotted the hero's rigid stance, seeing that there was something very wrong with his companion.

"Well, look at whose being so secretive now," Sonic muttered keenly and poked at the fire, causing a shower of burning ashes to float through the air.

Shadow watched the dying embers waft through the air as if they were glowing confetti. Something in Sonic's tone had the quills on his back flexing instinctively for a battle, but Shadow couldn't tell what was bothering the other.

Finally he looked over the fire to meet Sonic's gaze, "If you must know, I gathered the information myself. That's why I know of its location."

Sonic ears twitched as he listened. He was baiting Shadow into telling him what he wanted to know and he stared at the ebony hedgehog suspiciously. However Shadow was looking at him guardedly, as if knowing that Sonic was fishing for something. The hero knew there was no point dancing around the subject, so he decided to take the direct route. He leaned forward to prop his muzzle on his hand.

"If GUN knew where Eggman was, why didn't they storm in and arrest him before he nabbed Tails?" Sonic demanded, finally voicing his thoughts.

He glared over at the agent sitting across from him. Shadow's ebony fur was dyed orange thanks to the glow of the fire and his ruby eyes, fiercely lit like burning embers, rose to meet Sonic's challenging gaze.

"What are you suggesting?" Shadow murmured softly. The quills on the ebony racer's back flexed with readiness as he recognized the suspicion in Sonic's eyes.

"I don't know," Sonic continued to watch his dark counterpart sharply, "I just know it's not usually GUN's style to sit around when one of their most dangerous felons roams free. GUN hasn't been doing so hot a job."

Shadow's eyes narrowed at the crack and he let out a low, angry growl. Was Sonic honestly insinuating that GUN was doing nothing?

"You've done a fine job of apprehending the doctor yourself," Shadow said ruthlessly, annoyed that Sonic was suggesting hadn't been doing their job.

There was a flash of hurt surprise that crossed over Sonic's face, yet almost as soon as it had appeared, it was gone and replaced with an angry mask. It had Shadow immediately regretting his words.

Normally he wouldn't have let anyone get a rise out of him like that, but Sonic had somehow managed to get under his quills. Sonic was good at that and Shadow didn't know why. It didn't help that he had been on edge as of late. The constant presence of Sonic had been doing funny things to him.

The two hedgehogs fell into an angry silence, both staring daggers at one another. Unlike the silence that had stretched between them earlier, this one was tense and unforgiving.

Despite the proud set to Sonic's shoulders, Shadow could sense the faint traces of hurt clinging to his rival. He didn't know how he knew that, but he did. His comment had hit a sensitive nerve with the hedgehog, just as the GUN soldiers' had from earlier. Shadow mentally cringed as he realized that made him no better than the careless grunt. Shadow didn't know why he said that.

It was all too clear that Sonic fought the doctor with everything he had and that often put him into suicidal situations. How often had Sonic's heroism lead to the defeat of the mad doctor and the safety of the entire planet? It was forgivable for Sonic to be a bit distracted after such occurrences. Chaos only knew Shadow was confused and disoriented sometimes after battles like that.

Battles he had fought with Sonic side by side, often times while they were both Super. Both connected...

_No_, Shadow thought savagely. He was not going to be travelling down that train of thought again.

He returned to his previous thoughts in an effort to distract him.

He had been through enough battles with Sonic to know that he knew better than to say something so cruel to the other.

Shadow didn't care if the doctor got away on occasion.

But Shadow was no 'hero.'

Not like Sonic.

Sonic was a hero who tried to save everyone, be they close friends or complete strangers. Shadow's sympathies didn't stretch that far. He would respect those who died, but Sonic would genuinely grieve for the loss of a life he had never met before.

That was a heavy burden to carry alone.

Eggman's capture meant a great deal to Sonic. It meant innocent lives were safe from his experiments and robots.

And because Eggman had walked free, Tails had been captured.

Or so they thought -- Shadow had yet to hear back from Rouge.

The dark hedgehog pondered on the possibilities of locking the doctor away. If Eggman was locked up, there would be nothing for Sonic to do. Of course, the hyperactive hero would become eternally bored as a result, but Shadow figured Sonic would rather go crazy from his restlessness than have innocents hurt.

He looked over at the sullen hero and suppressed a sigh.

Shadow was never one to put much merit in psychology, but he was willing to bet that Sonic's sudden aggression stemmed from his Batman-Hero complex.

Sonic was so used to carrying the weight of being a hero, Shadow very much doubted his rival knew he was even shouldering one any longer.

Deciding he had enough of this silence and general grouchiness, Shadow decided to speak up.

"I'm trying to help you find Tails," Shadow said with as much patience as possible.

The blue hedgehog merely turned his emerald gaze into the fire, choosing not to reply. In most cases Shadow would have been relieved from a break in his rival's constant chatter, but this silence was disconcerting. Shadow didn't like thinking he was the cause to Sonic's current distress.

"You're right," Shadow muttered. He pointedly ignored the way Sonic's eyes shot up in surprise, "SUN doesn't work that way. Had they known the Doctor's exact location a team would have been dispatched immediately to apprehend him."

Sonic blinked slowly as he worked on processing the agent's words. He sat up on his haunches and peered at the impassive racer closely, "What're you trying to say Shadow? You said you knew where ol' Egghead was."

"No. You said that. I just didn't correct you," Shadow shrugged, "I never completed the mission because a hedgehog decided to throw a very wild party on the beach."

The agent looked so serious, Sonic honestly couldn't tell if Shadow had attempted to crack a joke or not. Regardless, it surprised a laugh out of Sonic that soon had him in stitches of unexpected mirth. Slowly his anger and annoyance melted away and by the time he was finished, Sonic was beginning to feel a bit better about the general situation.

Sure Tails was still captured and Shadow didn't really seem to know where Eggman's lair was. Both those things sucked.

But if Sonic could still crack a grin over it, the situation couldn't be all _that_ bad yet.

As his chuckles began to trail off, Sonic was vaguely aware that Shadow was staring at him like he was a crazy person. Sonic didn't care, he merely continued to chuckle under his breath.

Shaking his head, Sonic glanced up at the perplexed looking Shadow and his lips tugged into a cocky grin.

"So you don't know where Eggman is?" Sonic asked, some of his humor finally dying down, but his smile staying in place.

Shadow watched Sonic strangely, almost as if he was halfway expecting his rival to spontaneously combust. He wouldn't admit it out loud, but Shadow was somewhat relieved to see that Sonic was back to his usual idiotic self.

"Yes and no," Shadow corrected slowly. He lifted a well burnt stick from the fire and turned towards the cave wall. He began to scratch a diagram with the ash against the stone. A small gust of wind rippling through Shadow's fur told him that his companion had joined him.

Sure enough Sonic was squatting next to Shadow, green eyes staring raptly at what was a roughly drawn map of the desert.

Shadow was surprised at the thrilling shock that coursed through his body at Sonic's sudden close proximity. He forcibly strangled the strange feeling, somewhat alarmed by the lingering sensation.

He cleared his throat to dislodge it of the sudden lump which had formed and directed his attention to the wall, attempting to calm his suddenly racing heart. What was _wrong_ with him?

"I've narrowed down the area by this perimeter," Shadow sketched out a circle in the map, "If Eggman's base is in the desert, then it'll be here."

Sonic looked at the area and smiled brightly, "That looks like it'll only take us a few hours to scope out the area." He grinned and sat down where he crouched, "That is if _I'm _leading, but your slow butt would probably fall behind." He grinned teasingly up at Ultimate Life form.

Shadow quirked an eyeridge as he sat down beside Sonic. He knew when the other was trying to bait him in for a race and it was clear that Sonic was trying to relieve some of the earlier tension with his unspoken challenge.

"We'll see about that then," Shadow murmured and leaned back against the rock face.

The two hedgehogs curled up in a comfortable silence near the fire, the thoughts of racing and rescuing Tails not far from either hedgehog's mind as they tried to drift off for the night.

Then, a twitching Sonic nudged Shadow's foot with his sneaker.

"Hey Faker..."

A ruby eye opened irritably and glared at the restless Sonic.

"What is it?" Shadow growled, wanting nothing more than to just try and get some sleep before he had to deal with the hyperactive hedgehog and the not-kidnapped fox tomorrow.

"Read me a bedtime story," Sonic flashed the dark hedgehog a cheeky grin.

Shadow stared at Sonic numbly for a moment and narrowed his eyes, "You're not serious are you?"

"I sure am," Sonic smirked, green eyes burning with mirth.

Shadow thought on it for a moment before a wicked smirk crawled over his muzzle, "Fine then." He said with a shrug of his shoulders. He ignored Sonic's surprised look, obviously the blue racer hadn't actually been expecting him to be told a bedtime story.

"This story is called 'The Night of the Werehog,'" Shadow smirked as Sonic's confusion immediately melted into a glare of irritation.

The blue hedgehog flopped over and curled up to go to bed, "Good night Shadow."

"Good night Faker."

--::--

So yeah. Essentially I had to get their introspection in there. It was tough since this is going to be a relatively short fic and the characters needed to develop. I'm planning ten chapters – will that happen? Who knows.

Reviews are cherished.


	4. Tutorial

Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic and I make no profit from his discomfort

--::--

As Sonic had predicted, it hadn't taken them long at all to find Eggman's base. Shadow had been surprised Sonic was looking at all, since the second they made it to open ground their casual run had turned into a full blown race.

It was dangerous terrain for them to be moving at such high speeds. One false step on the sand and either of them could find themselves head first in a sand dune and supporting several broken bones. Even knowing the consequences of slipping, Sonic didn't seem to care as he raced on. Shadow, who was never willing to be second best, had torn off after Sonic.

Pride be damned.

Unfortunately the race would never have a winner as no sooner had they stepped into Shadow's marked off perimeter, Eggman's security system activated.

It had been buried beneath the ground, rising up to separate the two hedgehogs like a great metallic beast. It looked like it would be an impossible opponent to face, and even the cocky Sonic looked somewhat daunted. However, much to their surprise the contraption promptly fell over.

It appeared than neither hedgehog had to do much since the sand that had gotten stuck in the system's joints prevented it from moving, making it instead a massively intimidating looking paperweight.

Why put a mechanical robot underneath layers of sand which would no doubt be dangerous for its system to function correctly?

For the dramatic show of course.

So while Sonic had been taking care of the paperweight at his leisure – rather savagely Shadow had to admit, obviously Sonic disliked having his races interrupted – a threatening looking army of robots marched in the distances.

"Looks like it had back up," Shadow noted.

"Thank you Captain Obvious," Sonic retorted.

This brought them into their current situation.

A wave of burning hot sand showered over both Sonic and Shadow as they tore into heavy plated robots set around edges of Eggman's base.

These robots had a tough exterior and it took at least two or three solid hits to tear through its heavy plating. This slowed their progress as they continued to work their way closer and closer to Eggman's base.

"If the doctor had mechs like this, why didn't he use them at the beach?" Shadow shouted over the din to the blue hedgehog.

Sonic leapt agilely over the heads of robots and landed harshly on the back of one. It toppled over with the hero's additional weight and Sonic darted off to land next to Shadow. The two hedgehogs instinctively pressed their backs together so neither would be attacked from behind.

"I don't know! Maybe he was saving a special treat just for us?" Sonic grinned widely before shooting off again.

Shadow fought the supreme urge to roll his eyes before tearing off after Sonic's lead.

--::--

When they finally broke into the doctor's base, both were surprised to see the state in which Eggman was in. It was obvious by the wet bath robe and moustache covered with soap suds that the doctor had been in the middle of a bath when the alarm went off.

The sight of a nearly naked Eggman granted Sonic and Shadow more of the doctor than they ever wished to see.

"Blasted rodents! Tearing up the place!" Eggman paced furiously while glaring at a computer screen. He wrung out his beloved moustache, seemingly oblivious to the two hedgehogs standing at the door in perplexed confusion.

"How often have you broken into his hide out and seen..." Shadow breathed softly, obviously struggling for words to describe what he was staring at, "..._this_?"

"Never," Sonic hissed back, watching in transfixed horror while Eggman ranted about property damage, "He's usually prepared since he's normally expecting us to come barging in."

"Seems we caught him flat footed this time," Shadow muttered.

"And with his pants down," Sonic was left cringing at the sight of the obese man storming around. Then, unable to contain himself any longer, Sonic cleared his throat, "Hey doc! Mind putting some clothes on?" He crowed.

Shadow smothered a nearly audible groan and crouched into a ready stance that Sonic mirrored when the mad doctor whirled around. Eggman's face was beat red and his trademark glasses were askew on his puffy pink nose. Shadow prepared himself for another onslaught of robots the doctor no doubt had hidden in the Master Control Room.

Yet no amount of preparation could ready Shadow for what came next.

Eggman let out an undignified yelp and fled behind a high backed chair in a vain attempt to cover himself from the intruders.

"Don't you know how to knock on a blasted door before entering?" Eggman shouted at the stunned hedgehogs.

That was...

... new?

Shadow wondered just how long the doctor spent roaming around his based naked at any given time, then decided that was a train of thought better left unanswered.

"What are you rodents doing here anyway?" Eggman demanded furiously, attempting to wrap the robe firmly around his large frame, "You usually wait for me to do something before running in and trashing the place!"

Shadow quirked an eyeridge as he watched the flustered doctor. Caught in a shower, surprised to see them, and in nothing more than a worn out bathrobe, all were signs pointing to Eggman's 'innocence.'

Of course it could all be an elaborate act, and with Eggman's track record that wasn't unlikely. Shadow wasn't going to take any chances with the tricky madman.

Obviously Sonic thought the same way, because no sooner had Shadow blinked, the hero had darted over to the doctor and dragged him out of the chair by his collar. All signs of previous humor were gone the instant Eggman acted oblivious. Green eyes that were normally so playful were now like dark pits of emerald fire.

In the six or so odd years that Shadow had known Sonic, he had only seen the other's quiet fury once before and that had been a very long time ago. Shadow hadn't thought he'd see it again.

Now Shadow was highly tempted to take a step away to distance himself from the hero.

Of course he held his ground since he was the Ultimate Life form and thus not scared of some blue faker...

...but he wouldn't have cared to be in Eggman's position.

"Where is Tails," Sonic demanded, pearly white fangs bared in a quiet snarl. Those three words sounded heavier than lead and held all the weight of a protective older brother. An older brother doing his best to fight off the overwhelming fear and worry that would paralyze a normal person.

Eggman, who looked a bit shaken by Sonic's strange shift in demeanor, could only gape in surprise as his glasses began to slowly slip off his nose.

"Tails? Why would I know where your little side kick is?" Eggman demanded, quickly gathering up both his wit and snark once the shock wore off, "It's not my job to keep tabs on him."

Seeing that Sonic's fist was only tightening around the collar of Eggman's robe, Shadow stepped forward to settle his hand on Sonic's shoulder. He wanted to stop Sonic from snapping and giving the doctor a black eye as that certainly wouldn't produce the results they wanted.

Well, the results that Shadow wanted. Which was Eggman's cooperation.

He knew Sonic would very much like to punch the doctor right now. In fact it would most likely be very satisfying.

Maybe later.

But now winning Eggman's cooperation was the highest priority.

And making sure that robe didn't slip any further, otherwise they were _all_ going to be horribly scarred for the rest of their lives.

Shadow really didn't know which took precedence over the other.

"Playing dumb won't make this situation go by any faster doctor," Shadow flicked lazy eyes over the madman's wet and soap covered form. He cringed in distaste, "And in your current situation that's the least of your worries."

Shadow waited for the implications of that to sink in before continuing, "An army of robots that bore a striking resemblance to your past designs stormed Emerald Coast—"

"—And took Tails," Sonic interrupted stiffly. His hands trembled with the effort it took not to go after Eggman and force the answers he needed out of him.

Shadow could see that Sonic had gone pale under his fur out of anger and his restraining hand on the hero's shoulder was most likely the only thing saving Eggman the trouble of having to invest in a decent pair of dentures. Sonic was in check for now, but Shadow knew that wouldn't last forever. Sonic's infamous impatience was already beginning to show.

One mean spirited comment was all it would take to make Sonic snap.

Eggman merely shook his head, "I think you have me confused with some other megalomaniac with a legion of robots – have you thought to check in with Dr. Doom yet?"

Sonic ripped himself from Shadow's firm grip and hauled his archenemy to his feet. Eggman stumbled after Sonic as the hedgehog lifted him with far more strength than the doctor ever thought the hero possessed. He looked to Shadow for help, but the agent watched on unsympathetically.

"Enough crap Eggman," Sonic said very softly, "I've fought you my _entire_ life. I think I'd know a Badnik from a SWATbot and a SWATbot from a toaster when I see one.

"So what I _do_ know is that a legion of your robots came to the beast, trashed the place, tried to kill me and my friends, and when none of that worked they took my little brother."

Eggman's eyes were wide with genuine fear at whatever he might have seen on Sonic's face. Shadow found himself thanking Chaos once again that he wasn't on the receiving end of the hero's fury.

"I don't have Tails," Eggman denied, "I swear I don't!"

Shadow snorted as he turned towards the large LCD screen. He flipped it on to the local news channel where a crew was busy picking up the spare parts and twisted metal heaps of SWATbots, "Unfortunately your promises mean very little doctor, as time and again your actions speak far louder than words."

Eggman watched the screen blankly, a slow purple color beginning to creep onto his cheeks.

Then surprisingly, he burst out into full, body shaking laughter. He looked genuinely amused, "You cannot be serious!" The doctor cackled madly.

He looked between the hedgehogs to invite them to join in with the 'joke.' Neither cracked a smile so Eggman's mirth quickly died away under their frigid stares.

"You don't really think I'm responsible for this do you?" Eggman looked at Sonic in surprise, "Those are Badniks that attacked you."

"Yes thank you, we've realized as much," Sonic put in with an annoyed flare. Obviously Eggman's laughter and outright confusion had put somewhat of a damper on his righteous anger. Now he was looking at the doctor with deep suspicion.

"Sonic, you were capable of destroying my army of Badniks when you were _eight_," Eggman scowled, "I got rid of all my older models years ago. It would be a pointless waste of scrap metal to sick them on you only for you to tear through them in minutes."

"Thirty seconds, tops." Came Sonic's correcting reply.

Shadow gave his blue partner an irritated glare. His ears had perked up at the mention of Eggman discarding his robots and he narrowed his eyes with interest, "And where did you throw all your used robots? GUN would've noticed you transporting an army."

"Junkyard Zone of course," Eggman sniffed. Obviously he had been somewhat insulted when both hedgehogs insinuated he had been using old technology for his mater plans, "No one goes there. The smell is something foul since all of Mobius practically uses it as dumping grounds for their garbage. It's where I throw all my old gear."

Shadow turned towards the nearby super computer and began to pull up files to validate Eggman's story. If the doctor was smart, he'd keep something like an inventory on file. Sure enough the story checked out as Shadow looked over the past years of the doctor's expense reports.

The doctor filed taxes? Who knew...

Next, going off an instinct he couldn't quite name, Shadow streamed a live video feed to Junkyard Zone. If the robots weren't in Eggman's base, and he had deposited them there, Shadow would be staring at a huge pile of rotted metal.

However what he saw there made him freeze dead cold.

"Sonic, look at this," He breathed softly. In a flash, Sonic had darted over with a startled Eggman in tow.

"No way," Sonic muttered as green eyes locked on the massive screen. Even Eggman let out a sound of surprise.

Junkyard Zone had been completely cleared out. It was barren. No garbage. No trash.

Nothing.

Slowly, Shadow turned towards the doctor, his heart was doing odd flips and he felt just a bit ill – truly a concern for the Ultimate Lifeform. The possibilities of what this might mean made Shadow sick to his stomach.

"Doctor, is it possible that someone could have made these robots functional with the supplies gathered from the dump and accompanied by the right knowledge?" Shadow demanded quietly, praying against all odds that the doctor would say 'no.'

Eggman considered the question before he slowly nodded, "Yes. It is possible."

Sonic looked between Eggman and Shadow, green eyes going wide.

"Wait, are you saying there's another psycho out there and playing with Egghead's old toys?" The hero demanded.

Shadow met Sonic's gaze grimly and nodded.

"It would appear so."

--::--

Tails groaned as slowly he began to come around. The first few things he noticed were that he was lying on a dirt floor. The second thing he noticed was an irritating headache throbbing painfully at his temple.

"Where am I?" He groaned aloud.

He had been drugged by that 'Mary Sue' person and carted away here. Wherever 'here' was.

The fox looked around warily. He was in a windowless cell with an open barred chamber door, like something he'd see in a jail. It was being guarded by one of Eggman's ridiculous looking clown bots. Tails smirked to himself; he could incapacitate the thing and steal its plaster to get out of this rotten dump.

As soon as he darted forward a sharp pain shot up his tails. The fox gasped and swiftly twisted around, finally noticing thick chains clamped over and twisted around his namesakes. The chains were attached to a heavy post and next to it a deep hole had been dug into the ground. Tails crinkled his nose as he realized it was meant for him to use as a way to dispose of his 'waste.'

Gross.

Tails spotted a padlock on the chains and a stroke of inspiration hit him. Perhaps he could pick it open with the drill bits Sonic had gotten him! He patted at his fur, feeling slow panic set in when he realized he was no longer in possession of the small case.

He groaned.

Mary Sue had probably taken it form him before throwing him in this hellhole. Tails growled in frustration as he flopped down, casting defeated blue eyes around his prison. There was a small vent directly overhead, but there was no chance he could reach it so much as fit through it. The most he could probably do was jump for it and wrap his fingers around the grail enough to yank it off.

It couldn't hurt to try; Tails clambered back to his feet and looked up at the ceiling.

At the very least he'd get to vandalize this place a bit.

He crouched on his haunches, preparing to spring up to grab hold of the vent. Before he could try, a smooth voice interrupted him.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Tails whirled around at the familiar voice and his fur bristled. He got a good look at his captor and his hackles rose warningly.

She was a human with long auburn hair swept to the side and pinned up in a messy up-do. She had dark brown eyes and a splash of freckles across her straight nose and cheeks.

"Mary Sue!" Tails glared at her, "Why am I here?" His eyes drifted over towards one of the robots flanking her on either side serving as her body guards, "What's Eggman offering you to make you do this?"

Mary clucked her tongue, "Eggman has nothing to do with this."

She smirked and leaned against the bars to his cell, "That's all I'll answer, because anymore and I'll have to kill you according to the evil overlord checklist."

Tails stared at her blankly.

"Oh, you don't believe me?" Mary carefully unfolded a sheet of paper tucked away at her waistband and waved it at the fox before she consulted it, "Rule 7, 'When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."'"

She looked over at Tails, "Do you want me to shoot you?"

"No thank you," The fox muttered and shook his head. He stared at her suspiciously, "So are you honestly going to base your entire evil plan off of that?" Tails demanded.

"Of course I am Miles," Mary said sweetly, "After all it got you caught didn't it?"

Tails winced.

'Oh be strong my battered ego. You'll prove that list wrong yet,' He thought desperately to reassure himself.

"So why can't I hang off the vent?" He changed the subject, giving the human a grudging glare.

"Because anything weighing more than ten pounds will be flash frozen with liquid nitrogen," Mary's smile only grew sweeter, "It will then promptly be thrown off the roof of my base so I can watch it bounce for my own personal amusement."

Tails edged away from the woman and looked over at her as though she were mad, "Just out of curiosity, how long have you been planning this?"

"Seven years," Mary replied simply as she consulted the list in relation to talkative prisoners. She smirked with satisfaction as she witness the fox yelp in surprise from her answer.

"Seven years?" Tails demanded, "Chaos! That's way more time than Eggman invests in any single plan!"

Usually the madman just went ahead and unleashed some great evil until it went out of control and was forced to be beaten back by Super Sonic.

Mary purred with acknowledgement and slowly crouched down, her eyes gleaming with wicked amusement. She met Tails' gaze, staying at his eyelevel.

"And that is precisely why I'm going to win this game," She smirked with a soft smile, "I know everything there is to learn about this particular universe and the characters in it."

She stood up, "Now if you excuse me, I have a meeting with one called Fang the Sniper."

Tails, ignoring the slight tremble Mary's threat caused, stared at her deadpanned, "Never heard of him before – he sounds like a hardcore dentist though."

Mary faltered for the moment, something in which Tails took as a brief victory.

The human puffed herself up and swept herself towards the door, "Well then perhaps the name Nack the Weasel will inspire a bit of fear in you!" And with those words, Mary Sue flounced out, leaving a confused Tails alone in her wake.

He blinked to himself and coughed into the silence.

"Who the heck is Nack?"

--::--

I lost my grandpa late last night so I hurried to finish this chapter before I had to hop on a plane. I hope you guys enjoyed it even if my heart wasn't really in it.

The evil Overlord checklist can be found here: http: //tvtropes. org/pmwiki/pmwiki. php/Main/EvilOverlordList just take away the spaces.


	5. Save File

Sorry for the lack of an update. I guess I've been kind of depressed as of late with my grandpa's death, but I'm back with progress.

Please enjoy

--::--

Back in the zone of Ineffective Time Wasting, Sonic was doing a bit of high speed pacing in Eggman's computer room. He anxiously watched Shadow try to get in contact with Rouge who had been MIA for the last eighteen hours. 

"It's no use," Shadow sighed as he finally gave up, "The link is broken. I can't reach her." 

Sonic watched as Shadow's frown only deepened and turned inward, the dark hedgehog becoming engrossed in his own thoughts. 

Shadow wouldn't admit it to anyone, but it was clear to Sonic that the ebony racer was worried about his partner. It wasn't like Rouge to blow off something of this importance and that could only mean something had happened to the bat to prevent her from contacting Shadow. 

And just as it was obvious that Shadow was worried about her, he certainly wasn't going to waste time with fretting. Sonic respected his rival's directness and wished he could detach himself from situations like Shadow could. After all Sonic was going mad with worry for Tails now. 

He had combed every inch of Eggman's lair, unwilling to believe that Eggman didn't have his little brother. He had turned up with no results, and Rouge hadn't confirmed whether Tails was at home. It had been nearly a full day since he went missing. 

Now Shadow was in a similar situation thanks to Sonic's pestering. The agent's partner was missing because Shadow had consented to put Sonic's mind at ease while they actively searched for Tails elsewhere. 

The thought caused a sudden tightness in Sonic's chest. 

Why was Shadow doing this for him anyway? Sonic thought suddenly. He really didn't have to help out like this... No one was making him. Sure, Sonic had annoyed him a bit, but Shadow had fully consented to being followed to Eggman's base. 

The realization that Shadow was doing this without being forced or ordered to struck Sonic like a brick.  
Sonic watched Shadow push his concern for Rouge aside and opened the communication line wired through his glove. 

"Shadow here. I need a high security transport for Doctor Eggman dispatched immediately. The coordinates will be coming in shortly" The hedgehog said quietly, going straight down to business. The scientist was bound to his chair with a blanket strategically thrown over his frame to thankfully cover him and his many 'assets.' 

Sonic looked over at Shadow in surprise and touched the ebony hedgehog's shoulder to get his attention, "Hey, you're arresting him?" 

Shadow nodded shortly, "I see no better time than now to lock him away." He said simply, "Besides, we might still have a use for him." 

"Oh," Sonic said easily enough, his hand dropping back down to his side even while his heart began to race at Mach three. After a long spell of silence in which Sonic fidgeted and Shadow rigidly stood by Eggman's super computer, the blue hero finally put voice to some of his turbulent thoughts. 

"Thanks," Sonic said softly, barely audible to even Shadow's Ultimate Hearing. 

An ear twitched in Sonic's direction and the rest of Shadow turned to look at him, "For what -- doing my job?" He questioned, not sounding terribly interested in the hero's answer. 

Sonic hid a wince at the obvious barb to their conversation the previous night and shifted under Shadow's ruby gaze. He scratched at the nape of his neck sheepishly, "Well you didn't have to go ahead and play good cop-bad cop with me. I know it was already against your orders to tell me about this place--" 

"You followed me here," Shadow interrupted, correcting Sonic's story on the spot. 

"Whatever," Sonic continued impatiently, annoyed that Shadow wasn't taking his heartfelt 'thank you' a bit more seriously. He could always count on Shadow to get hung up on the technicalities of something so simple, "I'm thanking you because you didn't have to." 

A red sneaker kicked at the floor irritably, almost as if Sonic was trying to flick off an imaginary clot of dirt sticking to the tip, "Especially now that Rouge is MIA like Tails and--" 

"She hasn't been kidnapped," Shadow interrupted a second time, almost as if he hadn't heard Sonic's little speech. If he had, he was choosing to ignore it. 

Sonic's quills bristled, "I wasn't saying that she was, but--" 

"Furthermore, I doubt Tails is in as great a danger as you've been yipping about," Shadow continued deadpanned, the earlier comments completely disregarded. 

At this point, all of Sonic's flowery thoughts about thanking Shadow had all but fled out the closest window. In fact, now Sonic was annoyed with the other and wondering if he could possibly get away with sticking Shadow's in the closest door frame and closing the door repeatedly on his head. 

But of course Eggman had to have automatic sliding doors... 

Tails had been kidnapped! Of course that meant he was in danger! Sonic had long suspected that Shadow had been barking up the wrong tree for a while now, but this was ridiculous. Sonic knew that both he and his dark rival harbored very radical ideas of what they considered 'safe,' but being kidnapped and held against your will seemed to fit under a 'danger' category. 

That, and Sonic didn't yip. 

...His voice just occasionally hit a fairly high octave. 

"Well Mr. Dark-and-Angsty, in case you didn't notice my best bud just got kidnapped and your partner is MIA," Sonic glared at Shadow, "Or are you so cold you don't care at all?" 

Shadow looked at Sonic impassively, but the hero thought he might have imagined a blazing heat glimmering beneath the surface of those cool ruby eyes. 

"There is such a thing as caring too much," Shadow said shortly, "Which obviously you do." 

Sonic opened his mouth to disagree but Shadow interrupted -- he was doing that far too often for Sonic's liking. 

"You go blazing off half-cocked to Eggman's lair without even checking to see if Tails was safe at home, you accuse both GUN and myself of negligence, you purposefully throw us into danger headfirst and without so much as a plan," Shadow's voice gradually increased in volume so it was now a dark rumble, "Furthermore when we get here you choose to let your heart get in the way of reason and nearly make the doctor crap his pants into silence." 

"Considering he wasn't wearing any pants, I suppose that could be considered a bad thing," Sonic said wistfully but was silenced by a withering glare from Shadow. 

The dark hedgehog paused throughout all of that, crimson eyes glaring at Sonic, "Yes I am concerned about Rouge, but I'm not worried." 

Sonic stared at Shadow, more surprised by the amount of words his partner was saying than what he was saying -- which was just as shocking. 

"What's the difference?" Sonic crossed his arms over his chest, feeling somewhat unnerved by the normally reserved hedgehog's rant. 

"Unlike you, I have the faith that even if Rouge got into trouble she'd be able to get out of it," Shadow said shortly. Ruby eyes looked harshly at Sonic, "You peddle that 'believe in yourself' nonsense, but when it's time for you to put a bit of faith in your brother, the great hero of Mobius folds like a deck of playing cards." 

Sonic reeled back as if he had been struck by a hard blow, but he quickly recovered, his eyes darkening with anger. 

"You have no idea how much faith I have in Tails," Sonic said quietly, glaring at Shadow in such a way that if looks could kill, the Ultimate Lifeform would not be feeling very alive. 

"Is that so?" Shadow held his ground, ruby eyes flashing as he looked at Sonic challengingly, "The why don't you prove it instead of wasting your time trying to make fully grown men cry?" Shadow nodded over at Eggman, who still looked rather shaken by Sonic's rough interrogation. 

Sonic fell into silence at that, searching for words to reply.

Sonic looked over at Shadow and he watched the aggravated and stoic hedgehog. He was mulling over the other's words, beating his temper into submission so he could think about what Shadow was saying. And more importantly, why. 

Shadow was extremely analytical. His thoughts ran as logically as Eggman's supercomputer. It was difficult for Sonic to think in such a way. Shadow was a Classicist, while Sonic was a Romanticist. Perhaps Shadow just... didn't understand or see the point. 

"My faith in Tails has nothing to do with why I'm going out of my way to find him," Sonic replied, staring at Shadow hard, "I'm going because I love my little brother, and I'm not going to leave anything to risk." 

Shadow's eyeridge raised in surprise at Sonic's words. In all actuality he shouldn't have been so shocking. It was expected from the hero. The cobalt racer's naïveté never ceased to astonish Shadow, especially how Sonic had somehow managed to keep that part of him unscathed and whole. 

Before the ebony racer could open his mouth the reply or question Sonic further, a low beeping caught his attention. It originated from the computer panel and slowly, Shadow turned away from Sonic's uncharacteristically serious eyes to examine it. 

His ruby gaze searched out the source, landing on a flashing yellow button. Eggman began to twist anxiously in his bonds and Shadow's eyes narrowed, "Is there something you're trying to hide doctor?" He asked softly. 

This caught Sonic's attention and he darted over to the panel. "What's the button do?" He asked, blue eyes twitching in time to the button's irritating beeping. 

Eggman remained stubbornly silent and looked away, anywhere but at that button. Sonic eyed it with annoyance and flashed the doctor a wicked grin, "What? You're not going to tell us?" 

Before Shadow could understand what that sudden, wicked glint in his partners eyes meant, Sonic was giving the Ultimate Lifeform an insistent push out of the way. Shadow stepped out of the way easily enough; not yet realizing what Sonic intended to do. However, the pieces quickly clicked together once Shadow noticed the wicked gleam entering those emerald eyes. Shadow made an abortive attempt to stop him, but Sonic was too fast. 

"I guess we're going to find out ourselves," Sonic grinned and jammed the button down. 

The beeping instantly stopped and Shadow growled, whirling on Sonic with renewed anger, "Are you _trying_ to get us killed?" He demanded, "You just don't go around pressing buttons to unknown machines!" 

"Don't get your quills in a twist Faker, nothing happened," Sonic waved off the angry hedgehog and kept his eyes glued on the computer screen. When he had pushed the button, a sonar image had popped up, illuminating the two hedgehogs in a dark emerald light. It colored Sonic's quills an interesting shade of teal, an observation Shadow found surprisingly hard to ignore. It was somewhat... attractive.

The agent tore his gaze away from Sonic, trying his best to crush the sudden warmth attempting to crawl its way to the surface of his muzzle.

'_Focus you fool_,' Shadow mentally berated himself and worked on absorbing himself in the new information flashing not three feet in front of his eyes.

"What's this?" Shadow murmured softly as he eyed the screen. He had finally managed to regain enough of his world renowned detachments to observe both the image and Sonic without falling prey to some deluded fan girl's fantasy.

Six blinking dots were clustered at the far corner of the map. A single, lone dot was blinking not far from Eggman's current base.

On the very top of the screen, it was helpfully labeled, 'Eggman's Super Secret Chaos Emerald Detector.'

"Three guesses what this is and the first two don't count," Sonic said dryly as he eyed the screen, "After the emeralds again Eggman?"

The doctor huffed haughtily and glared at the two hedgehogs, "I don't know what you're talking about." He sat up innocently, "I was merely checking to see if they were safe and in their proper places – I would never consider using the emeralds for my diabolical schemes."

Shadow frowned as he eyed the map. Eggman's words caused him to think. Sonic on the other hand was too busy snorting at his mad adversary in contempt to pay it any mind.

"Come off it Eggman. You just wanted to get your grubby paws on the emeralds so you could rule the world by resurrecting Creature X with their power."

"No Sonic," Shadow interrupted, drawing the hero's gaze towards him, "He's right."

Green eyes regarded Shadow somewhat impatiently, blue ears twitching, "C'mon Shadz. Don't tell me I got to commit you to the asylum too – I know it's a bit overdue at this point but..."

"He might have been intending to steal the emeralds for a predictably evil plan, but look at this." Shadow pointed to the cluster of emeralds gathered in one place, obviously choosing to ignore Sonic's crack against his sanity, "Don't you find it unusual that six of the emeralds are in one spot?

"You have a rather nasty habit of losing those emeralds over the entirety of Mobius the second you touch them," Shadow continued, much to Sonic's annoyance.

"Well you seem to do a find job of holding onto your emerald," Sonic shot at him. This bit of knowledge was promptly ignored by Shadow.

"So what do we know?" The dark agent said flatly, "A. Someone is stealing the doctor's tech, B. the Chaos emeralds are being gathered, and C. Tails has been 'kidnapped.'"

"So you're saying we'll find the plot with the rest of the emeralds?" Sonic drawled with a quirked eyeridge. Green eyes rested on the flickering dots burning against the maps backdrop, "How original."

"Where else would we find it?" Shadow asked deadpanned and began to zoom in on the map, "Looks like the emeralds are in Green Hill Zone."

"No way," Sonic peered over Shadow's shoulder, much to the darker hedgehog's discomfort. Sure enough, the familiar checkered grounds and loops were flashing clearly on the computer. A wave of nostalgia hit Sonic at the thought of going back there and his lips twitched at the corners of his mouth.

"It's quite the distance," Shadow muttered, "Our best bet is to get the emerald nearby and chaos control there." Shadow didn't need to say how shaky the trip would be. Teleporting two hedgehogs such a far distance would be tricky – Shadow didn't want to end up in some crazy alternate universe where Sonic was his slave, now _that_ would be insane.

But on second thought, the dark racer wondered if they made mobian shaped muzzles...

Shadow cleared his throat as he realized Sonic was still talking. Chaos, what was _wrong_ with him? They were still on a high priority mission and Shadow couldn't but fantasize about slapping a muzzle on Sonic.

...Among other things, his traitorous mind pointed out.

"And what if Tails isn't there?" Sonic asked anxiously, forcing Shadow's attention away from what could have been thoughts appropriate for the rating of this fic.

"Then we wouldn't have wasted much time by chaos controlling, and the added strength of the emerald certainly couldn't hurt our chances," Shadow said patiently, clamping down hard on whatever strange desires were trying to make themselves known.

Sonic stared at the stoic hedgehog for a long moment, oblivious to the other's inner turmoil. He was trying to decide if it was worth it. Was Shadow's judgment worth the effort?

His heart and stomach flipped anxiously in his belly and Sonic felt very unlike the proud and cocky hedgehog he usually was. Something just didn't feel right. The hero couldn't explain it, but his instincts were screaming at him that something bad was going to happen.

But Shadow...

Despite how the two hedgehogs seemed to clash at every corner, they were working well together. Regardless of their differing viewpoints, or how much Sonic seemed to annoy Shadow, the ebony racer was still helping him. They were constantly at one another's throats, but they had gotten this far together. Perhaps they could go all the way.

Slowly he smiled and nodded.

"Let's do this."

--::--

The bar was dark and rancid, making it extremely difficult to see. It was made even harder by the thick screen of heavy cigarette smoke blocking out the dim and yellow lights.

The smell of alcohol permeated through every particle of the air and Mary Sue crinkled her nose in disgust. She hated being in a place as foul as this, but if her hunch was right it would be well worth a few moments of discomfort.

She wrapped her dark jacket firmly around her shoulders and searched out the purple form she had spent many resources to track him down. Marry spotted the weasel slumped over on the bar, currently attempting to either drown himself in booze or give himself alcohol poisoning.

Mary took a seat next to him and ordered something light. The weasel turned one bloodshot eye towards her, annoyed someone was invading his space. It seemed he was more annoyed by the fact that she was sober than anything else.

"You're Nack the Weasel?" Mary asked, looking down her nose at the pathetic sight of the once formidable mercenary.

"Who wantz to know?" Nack slurred belligerently.

Mary snorted, "Look at how far you've fallen. It's such a shame that a shooter of your caliber would be kicked so ruthlessly to the curb just because some blue rodent wanted more screen time."

Nack looked at her a bit cross eyed, "What're you talkin' about lady?" He growled, "I dun know nothin' about no screen time."

"You haven't had business in a while," Mary said crisply, not noticing how Nack's eyes were _very_ cross eyed now, "I have a well paying job for you. Very lucrative and bound to get your name out in the headlines."

At the mention of money, it became clear by the gleam in Nack's eyes that Mary was finally speaking a language the weasel could understand. It was as if the idea of money sobered him and a lucid, greedy spark had Nack sitting up straight attentively.

"You've got my attention," Nack eyed her, "How well paying are you talkin' about?"

"Handsomely," Mary purred. She pulled a bag out from her cloak and settled it in front of him, "Half payment up front."

Nack weighed the hefty bag, the hungry gleam getting all the more prominent and greedy, "This is a lot of cash. You must want me to do something pretty damn bad." A long ear waggled, "What's the gig?"

Mary smiled and slid a picture across the bar counter, "I want you to this particular hedgehog. It has recently come to my attention that he stands a chance of upsetting my carefully laid out plan with his interference. That and he came out with a truly awful game."

Nack's eyes landed on the photo and he snorted, "Have you lost your damn mind? You couldn't pay me enough to even try to snipe this guy off!"

"What, are you scared of him?" Mary looked at the weasel, then at her nails as if she were more interested in them than the hired gun.

Nack glared poisonously at her, "I'm not scared of anything, but I don't make a habit out of flirting with death."

"A survivalist huh?" Mary smirked, "Well I've set up a trap for him. He'll be easy pickings, especially since he's already fallen for it.

"But if that's not enough, I'll sweeten the deal for you."

"Oh?" Nack growled curiously. Obviously he was interested in what this woman had to offer. She came with a ridiculous sum of money and high aspirations. He wanted to know what else he could wring from her before all this was through.

Mary smiled, "Once he's out of the way, my plan will be finished and Mobius will be free reign for people like you to take what you want. I can assure you a massive amount of land that you can call your own. I shall give you Australia."

The weasel frowned, "What's 'Australia'?"

"Where your voice actor probably would have been from if you were included in the neo-generation games," Mary replied breezily.

Nack honestly couldn't find words to reply for a very long moment. It was becoming frighteningly clear that his employer did not have all of her wits together. That didn't make him feel very safe about his job.

"So you're going to give me a zone?" Nack said slowly, hoping to clarify any confusion.

"Specifically a very dangerous one where even the sheep could probably kill you, so yes... pretty much any zone in Mobius would do the trick," Mary grinned, "I don't think it matters in the long run."

She looked at him firmly, immediately losing her good nature, "So do you accept or should I leave you so you can continue drinking yourself under the table and into an early grave?"

Nack looked at the picture, then at the enticing money piled in front of him. It was all so appealing... and if his target really was going to easy pickings, then he didn't see why he shouldn't give it a try at the very least.

"Yeah," The weasel smirked and eyed the picture, "I'll kill Shadow the Hedgehog for ya."

--::--

"Achoo!"

The two hedgehogs watched as GUN loaded Eggman into a cargo hold. Shadow sniffed and rubbed his nose, ignoring how Sonic was staring at him in surprise.

"Wow Faker, I didn't know you could get sick," Sonic grinned.

Shadow gave Sonic an annoyed glare and rolled his eyes, "The Ultimate Lifeform does not get sick."

"Say what you want but stay away from me, I don't want to catch whatever you have," Sonic smirked playfully and took a step away.

Shadow eyed the hedgehog putting distance between them and rolled his eyes, "You couldn't catch anything, much less a cold – not even if I coughed down your throat." He shook his head and cleared his voice as the GUN soldiers started up their cars and began to transport Eggman away.

"We better get going," Shadow frowned as he crossed his arms over the tuft of fur on his chest. There was still a bit of silence stretching out between him and Sonic from their earlier, unresolved dispute. Shadow had been mulling over Sonic's words for a while now, but he still didn't know what to think of it.

Sonic nodded and eyed his partner, "Yeah. So where are we heading?"

"An hour's trip south," Shadow pointed to a map, "To Oil Ocean Zone."

--::--

Any of this sounding familiar?

By the way, if I don't update in a few weeks or so, don't assume the story is dead. This is a fic that I write at my leisure because it was a funny little idea I had. I have other fics on a different account that I've been neglecting, so I have to ask for your patience on the matter.

If you liked the chapter, please leave a review. I would certainly love and appreciate knowing people actually enjoy what I write.

R&R


	6. SubBoss

Special thanks to Floofie- errr, Skitzoism for basically writing the dialogue for me in the beginning. Nack and Mary Sue practically came to life all on their own.  
And congrats to everyone who managed to catch the HiMM reference! :D Cookies for juuu!

-::-

Nack rolled his eyes as he watched his employer cram two plushies' faces together from the corner of his eye. She obviously had too many bolts loose in the head. He growled in frustration as he cleaned off the scope of his weapon. His thumb caressed the safety lingeringly, as if wishing nothing more than to turn his gun on the insane woman behind him.

They were both in Oil Ocean Zone, waiting for his target to appear. Mary Sue, in a fit of boredom, had pulled out two plush dolls: Sonic the Hedgehog and Amy Rose. Now she was in the process of forcing the blue doll to eat the pink one's face.

"Sonamy forever," Mary purred as she continued to jam the plushies together.

Nack quirked a slow eyeridge and had to turn around to shoot her an incredulous look, "Don't you want you kill Sonic?" He demanded. When did Sonic and Amy become a strange and mutant version of Brangelina? Chaos, the only thing that would sound stranger would be if she somehow managed to combine Sonic's name with Shadow. Nack suppressed a shiver. He didn't even want to know what that would sound like.

Mary Sue hadn't told him everything about her plan just that it ended up with the deaths of Sonic and his entire merry little band of friends. He was completely fine with that fact, but Mary Sue was a contradiction in and of herself. She seemed utterly fascinated with Sonic despite her irrational need to kill him.

"YOU... WILL... LOVE... HER!" Mary Sue continued wrapped up too firmly in the fantasy world she created to notice Nack's presence much less his question. She jammed the Sonic doll into the Amy doll with each word she snarled.

Nack slowly continued to clean his scope, his mouth hanging open slightly as he watched Mary. The human had spread out her plushies inside of a refurbished (Eggman carrier?). The weasel might have imagined he saw tears in the plushies eyes as Mary continued to smash them together, abusively forcing them to 'kiss.'

Yet it was nothing compared to what she had done to a variety of Shadow dolls, all of which were fixed in what looked like miniature torture devices and makeshift pyres. That was a lot of hate for one hedgehog.

Nack had to admit, there was something fairly disturbing with the sight, but honestly the image of Mary Sue cramming Sonic and Amy together was even more terrifying. If he was in either of those two plushies place, Nack was certain he'd want to switch with the Shadow dolls any day of the week.

"You know..." Nack began as he watched Mary Sue continuously shove the dolls together until it looked like their heads were about to get torn off, "...I think Blue bats for the other team."

Two dark brown and furious eyes snapped up to give Nack the single most murderous glare he had ever seen in his life.

"Not in my fanfiction he doesn't," Mary hissed, giving Nack the dirtiest glare had ever been on the receiving end of.

Ooo-kay.

Nack simply shrugged, having gotten a bit used to his employers insanity by now. Mary Sue had apparently failed to notice a specific detail about Mobians in her rabid attempt to plot her evil scheme.

Mobians weren't humans. Nor were they animals. However, that didn't mean they failed to inherit animalistic characteristics from their feral cousins. Wild animals in nature did not often make a distinction between genders and neither did Mobians. Humans on the other hand, who were more suppressed in their sexuality, saw things in black and white. Straight or Gay.

He didn't bother attempting to point this out to Mary. After all, it would no doubt earn him another babbling rant about things that made absolutely no sense to Nack.

He sank down on his perch and leveled his gun. Nack peered through his scope, deciding to keep his mouth shut and leave Mary to her dolls. He had a job to do...

"'Oh Amy! I want to get married and have lots of hedgehog babies!'" Mary cooed in a masculine voice.

Nack's fingers inched towards the flask at his side.

...But before then, he'd need to get totally plastered first.

-::-

"I don't know how you could handle all that blasted sand," Shadow growled as he shook himself clean of the last grains of the itchy substance from his fur. He glared over at his grinning comrade as they entered the gooey place that was Oil Ocean Zone.

It had taken them a short amount of time to get to the polluted area. Now they were standing by the banks of a greasy ocean, the oil slicks so thick they could probably run across it without much difficulty. Although Shadow didn't care to try it, he was certain the heat from his jetshoes would set the entire zone on fire.

Sonic smirked and tucked his hands behind his head quills, flashing the grumpy hedgehog a brilliant smile that he absolutely knew would aggravate the other's nerves, "It's like lounging on the beach."

"And yet you spend all your time by the ocean, despite being inexplicably terrified of it," Shadow said blandly. His muzzle wrinkled with disgust as he surveyed the polluted area, his lips curled in a quiet snarl. He hated seeing pollution and trash. To see a Zone full of that nonsense churned his stomach.

The beautiful blue planet he had seen from the space colony with Maria over half a century ago was dying. The people here were wasteful and cruel, unable to see the destruction they were causing to the vibrant life of their planet. Pollution came hard and heavy on the heels of those living on Mobius, winding a trail of death over everything they touched.

Seeing Oil Ocean Zone disgusted Shadow. It had made him nauseous the first time he had come here and it still did to this day. Pollution. Waste.

If one decided just to clean the area up, there was the possibility this ocean could be usable. Shadow didn't want to consider how much sea life had been killed by this type of neglect.

"Hey now, there's nothing wrong with getting a tan," Sonic huffed, his quills fluffing up in irritation to Shadow's prod. He zipped over to Shadow's side and spotted the dark expression on his partner's face, "Don't like the zone?" He asked.

"Not in particular," Shadow admitted, ruby eyes never pulling away from the black, bubbling surface.

Sonic nodded and his lips pressed in a firm line as he too looked at the greasy ocean, "Yeah, this place reeks." His muzzle wrinkled as he cringed away from the edge, "This place is just one fire hazard waiting to happen."

"Don't glare at it too hard Shads," Sonic joked, "The heat from your glare would cause this whole place to go up in flames."

"And I'd imagine the heat from the hot air in your head would cause similar results," Shadow cut in, "Lets' find that emerald so we can leave." He muttered.

Sonic sulked and darted ahead, "Alright. Alright Mr. Grumpy." He snorted and looked over his shoulder, "Hey Faker..." He sang.

Shadow stiffened and glared over at Sonic as he followed along at a much slower pace. Ruby eyes glared at the hero with aggravated heat, knowing just what Sonic was going to say.

"No," He said shortly. Sonic's face fell for a moment and blue ears twitched.

"But I didn't say anything yet!" He protested.

Ruby eyes narrowed into slits, "I don't care." Shadow said firmly. He didn't need Sonic to say anything, it was more than clear what the hedgehog was going to say, "The answer is no."

"C'mon, lets' hear it."

"No, that joke is old!" Shadow glared at the blue hedgehog poisonously.

Sonic wouldn't have any of that. He darted swiftly over to Shadow's side and slung an arm over his partner's shoulders. Sonic leaned in close, a mischievous grin painted over his face, unaware to the sudden spike to Shadow's heart rate. Shadow shifted from the sudden close proximity of the other to get some space, trying to ignore how his heart raced at Sonic's unwanted touch.

"C'mon Faker," Sonic purred, a fawn elbow nudging Shadow's side, "You know you want to do it."

"No means NO, or can't you understand that?" Shadow all but snarled. He threw Sonic's arms off him and stormed off ahead, muttering obscenities under his breath. He settled a hand over the tuft of fur on his chest in an attempt to calm his heart. When it finally slowed, Shadow was left with just his thoughts. Shadow hated Sonic for afflicting him with this strange disease that affected his heart so potently. It was an odd sort of pressure in Shadow's chest that he hated and loved all at the same time.

Shadow also knew what it meant. He was no fool.

He liked Sonic far more than he was ever comfortable with admitting.

And he hated Sonic for making him feel that way.

They walked in silence, Sonic pouting over Shadow's surliness. The blue furred demon would keep sneaking disgruntled little glares over his shoulder, not seeming to care if Shadow saw him. In fact, whenever Shadow did catch him in the act, Sonic would make sure to stick out his tongue and blow him a raspberry just for the kicks.

Shadow mentally groaned as he thought about how poor his taste was. Why Sonic of all people? He didn't want to explore the answer to the question, so instead he eyed Sonic. It was rapidly becoming clear that Sonic was not going to stop with his childish sulking. No, not until Shadow rewarded his bad behavior and gave him what he wanted.

Sighing, Shadow finally relented, deciding to swallow a bit of pride for the sake of salvaging what was left of his precarious sanity.

"Where's that DAMN fourth chaos emerald?" Shadow grumbled reluctantly under his breath. He watched as blue ears perked up and the cobalt hero spun around with a victorious, shit-eating grin plastered across his muzzle.

"I knew you couldn't resist me Faker!" Sonic teased, settling his hands on blue hips. He batted large jade eyes at Shadow, causing the dark hedgehog's quills to flex with irritation.

Shadow strode past Sonic impassively, not knowing why he had even bothered trying to please that stupid... insufferable... infuriating... Faker. An embarrassed flush was creeping up under Shadow's dark coat and his only saving grace was it wasn't visible to its cause.

He stopped midstride as he heard the metallic sound of something sliding into place and the soft clicking of a barrel being turned. Shadow frowned, ears twisting and straining for the source of the noise.

"Hey Shads!" Sonic called after the cranky hedgehog, "C'mon I was just joking!"

Shadow held out a hand to stop Sonic and frowned, "Be quiet." he muttered.

Shadow had heard that sound before. In GUN training areas and in shooting ranges it was a familiar sound. Shadow, who had fired a gun on more than one occasion, would recognize the sound of a chamber turning into place from a mile away. He wasn't the only one. Sonic was falling silent, ears twitching alertly for the sound Shadow had heard.

'A gun?' Sonic's ears strained on the top of his head, searching for its source amongst the slimy machinery of Oil Ocean Zone. A single gun was easy to miss, but Sonic had heard the sounds of guns reloading and firing all of his young life. He whirled around as the obvious struck him and he spotted the glint of the weapon high above, "Behind us!" He shouted the warning and took off towards the source. A second too late.

The shot rang out and caught Shadow on the shoulder, the hedgehog having been caught against the pier without enough room to twist away completely. Shadow grunted as a wave of vertigo hit him and pain coursed up through his body. He could survive being shot. Quite easily in fact... but the excruciating pain in his shoulder told him this was his fault for not paying closer attention

So wrapped up in his thoughts, Shadow never noticed how the world had tilted on its access until he was falling off the pier, sideways into the sludge of the ocean. It sucked hard on his body and Shadow sank quickly. He swore and blindly struck out for the pier with his good arm, a gloved hand gripping the slippery pier post as best he could. For some reason, being in the waters had given him renewed strength.

Shadow didn't know how long it was possible for him to last on like this, but he didn't feel frightened or concerned. His right side was going numb as his hot blood splashed down his chest and neck - yet he still felt completely fine. He growled as he fought through the pain, which was gradually receding and managed to drag himself up on top of the oil slicked wood. As he did so, he finally noticed something increasingly strange...

A small burst of Chaos energy. Below him, down in the thick waters. Curious, Shadow reached his good hand down to the sticky surface, his ears folding back as the motion jarred his shoulder. He paid it no attention; instead he was focused on what was currently drawing his focus. He would have never noticed had he not fallen into the waters...

-::-

Meanwhile, Sonic had raced up to the gunner's station and ripped the weapon from a startled Nack's hands. Vibrant green eyes glared at the weasel hard, his gloved hands gripping the weapon a safe distance from the mercenary.

"Who are you?" Sonic growled, "And what do you want?" He glared down at the weasel's unconcerned gaze. Sonic wondered why the mercenary was so calm when he was disarmed and at his mercy, when something large, heavy and metal crashed down on him from above.

Stars exploded in Sonic's vision for a moment and he fell back away from Nack, giving the weasel enough time to scramble aboard the ship which had attempted to give Sonic a concussion. Luckily for Sonic, the driver didn't seem to know how hard his head was, and the most a blow like that could give him was a headache for a few hours.

Mary Sue drifted over in her egg transit, her eyes gleaming with interest as she looked down at the hero picking himself up, "This is Nack the Weasel. He's my hired gun and associate." She patted the weasel on his head fondly, ignoring the rather profane way the mercenary was glaring at her.

"And who are you?" Sonic demanded, squinting up at the human. His head hurt and his rear was sore, but he was clear headed enough to realize the gear this woman was sporting was of a similar make of Eggman's older models. They had found the person who was playing with Eggman's old toys. He connected the dots quickly and he growled, his quills bristling angrily, "You're the one who has Tails, aren't you?" He demanded.

"The name is Mary Sue," she purred, her gaze flicking over at Sonic even as she pulled her ship up higher, "If I were you, I wouldn't worry about who I am, or how Miles is doing." Her lips twitched in amusement as she looked over at the peer, "After all, it seems like your little friend needs your help."

It felt like a rock plummeted down into Sonic's belly and he whirled around to see where Shadow was. He had hardly noticed the other wasn't behind him, and now... Green eyes landed on the dark form, curled up on the pier, his body covered in grease, oil and slime. "Shadow!" He turned to glare over at Mary Sue, but she was already moving out of his jumping range. Not that it would stop him...

He was torn for the moment, not knowing whether or not to chase down Mary Sue to find Tails or go help Shadow. Sonic hesitated for a moment as the choice was obvious, Shadow needed his help now. He turned on his heel and bolted for Shadow, dropping down on a knee so he could help the other sit up.

He took in the damage, and had to fight a sigh of relief that followed. Shadow was awake, conscious and cranky. So that meant that he was completely fine. Mary had just played to his heroism, knowing Sonic couldn't leave Shadow behind if he thought he was hurt. Technically he was hurt, as bullets tended to do nasty things to people who were made out of flesh – but Shadow always seemed to be the exception to that rule.

"Hey Faker," Sonic growled soothingly and he looked the other over, "Man, you must be losing your touch if you're getting shot like that." His lips twitched weakly at his joke and he grimaced as he took in Shadow's appearance. Blood was mixed with oil and grease, coating nearly every inch of Shadow's ebony fur with dark brown smog.

"Your bedside manner needs work Hedgehog," Shadow grunted a retort and he stood up, swatting away the hero's helping hand with impatience, "Where's the gunner?" He frowned over at Sonic and dragged a hand over his shoulder to apply pressure.

Sonic rubbed a sheepish hand through his quills and glanced over at Shadow, "He got away." He looked at the other hedgehog seriously, "Are you alright to be standing up like that? You've got a bullet in your arm." He wasn't going to tell Shadow about the woman who had Tails just yet. He would talk to him about her when Shadow wasn't supporting a hole in his arm.

"I'll be fine," Shadow pulled his palm away, "It was a clean shot." Ruby eyes eyed Sonic, "More importantly, we have a problem."

Sonic blinked in confusion, "Aside from the obvious?"

Shadow looked down at the thick water and nodded. A grim smirk flicked over his face and he eyed Sonic, "I found the Chaos emerald." He muttered, ignoring how Sonic hopped over to his side.

"Really?" The racer asked excitedly. Sonic wondered why this would be a problem, but the expression on Shadow's face stopped Sonic from asking.

Shadow pointed down to the murky waters.

"It's down below."

-::-

Fffffffffff Nothing else I really want to say. Just thank god this chapter is over with. Sorry it's horribly short, but... eh. D: Something is better than nothing, right? Right?


	7. Mission Go

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic, only the tales of misfortune and horror that I put him through.**

**-::-**

Rouge let out a soft groan as she cracked open sore eyes, her wings fluttering against soft sheets as she came around from the worst headache she could ever say she had. With the exception of that one Christmas party and a certain time travelling hedgehog that brought aged liquor from the fifteenth century to the club... It was the best night Rouge could never remember, at least that was what the migraine she suffered the following day claimed.

"So you're awake," A gruff voice to her left caught her attention. Rouge whirled around sharply, spotting the red form of Angel Island's Guardian sitting with his arms crossed over his chest and watching her intently. The bat immediately regretted the sudden movement as her ears began to ring badly and her head spun.

"Ugh, what happened?" She grumbled and dipped her head into her open palms. Her eyes burned red behind her painted lids and she fought to remember what had knocked her around so badly.

"That's what I want to know, you've been out for days," Knuckles said. It was then Rouge spotted white bandages standing out starkly against the echidna's crimson fur. His folded arms were covering up most of the dressings, but he couldn't hide them from the sharp sighted Rouge. They didn't seem to really be bothering him though.

Rouge looked around and blinked as she found herself in a bed, apparently back in Station Square. Knuckles was looking annoyed and hotheaded as usual, no doubt because he wasn't on his island guarding his precious rock.

"What am I doing here Knucklehead?" The bat's wings mantled as she eyed him, dragging the blanket off her body and swinging her legs off the edge of the bed, "And what're you doing here for that matter?"

Knuckles' bristled with annoyance and stood up to glare out the window, suspicious violet eyes drifting over the rows of streets that were still lined with GUN patrols and fire trucks before flicking back to Rouge, "I don't really know myself." Knuckles admitted reluctantly.

"I found you by Tails' workshop," Knuckles eyed her; "You weren't alone. There were a ton of Eggman's old mechs and a few strange devices that made my ears hurt."

Rouge's eyes widened as the flood of memories returned to her. That was right...! Shadow had asked her to go check in on Tails at the kit's workplace. By the time Rouge had arrived, there had been no sign of the fox. Unfortunately, that wasn't the only strange thing Rouge noticed. There was an ambush waiting for her, almost as if someone had been expecting her.

The mechs had gone down without much of a fight, but Rouge hadn't been expecting them to be loaded with high frequency sonar devices. Rouge, with a bat's sensitive hearing, had dropped like a ton of bricks.

"I wanted to leave Tails' present on his work table when I saw you being carted off by the mechs," Knuckles shrugged, "I broke them, grabbed you and headed back to Station Square where there were still GUN patrols hanging around." He tilted his head slightly, "Losing your touch batgirl?"

Rouge groaned and looked at Knuckles. She had a feeling that he wasn't telling the whole story if the bandages around his chest were anything to go off of, but figured she'd keep that to herself so his male pride wouldn't be bruised. The last thing she wanted to do was stick Band-Aids all over his manly ego, "I was ambushed you moron..." She muttered, "Shadow was with Sonic – Tails has been kidnapped, and it looks like GUN's com lines have been compromised."

Sonic and Shadow were the only ones who knew she had been going to Tails' workshop. A bug in GUN's system was the only reasonable explanation behind how the ambush had been set up.

Rouge got up and walked over to the window to look at the silent Guardian, "Thanks for the help Knucklehead." Her lips pulled up at the corners slightly, "But I'm afraid I'm going to need to take up a bit more of your time."

-::-

Shadow found himself staring at the inky surface of the ocean, wondering not for the first time how Sonic had managed to convince him that his plan was even remotely sound. Oh that was right, Sonic hadn't. Sonic was clearly a hedgehog with a questionable amount of sanity, so there had been absolutely nothing Shadow could do to stop him when Sonic jumped feet first into the water. He held onto the rope that was tied to the hero with tight fingers, having looped it around one of the posts in case his grip slipped.

Shadow wasn't sure why Sonic insisted on testing Darwin's theory of natural selection so often – it was like the hedgehog had nothing better to do than continuously put himself into life threatening situations.

Natural selection eat your heart out.

Ruby eyes slid shut with annoyance as he thought back to how they ended up in their most current situation.

Sonic had been annoying as usual.

"_There is absolutely no possible way you are going to get me to jump head first into that sludgy mass of death without so much as a floatation device," Sonic said flatly as he glared murderously down into the thick waters, as if hoping the entire zone and its ocean would go up in flames._

"_I'll give you inflatable water wings if it makes you feel better," Shadow muttered as he favored his uninjured side. Ruby eyes gazed over at the anxious hedgehog, "It won't be needed, I'm going in myself as you can't swim. At the very least I can detect the emerald with precision and swi—"_

_Much to Shadow's surprise, Sonic immediately cut him off, "Absolutely not Faker." The hero whirled around and gripped Shadow's good arm firmly, green eyes boring into ruby with intensity behind the gaze Shadow hadn't been expecting. Shadow's gaze drifted down to where Sonic's hand was gripping his wrist, his shock momentarily overriding his sense. Sonic took Shadow's silence as an opportunity to continue._

"_You've just been shot. I know you can patch yourself up like a Highlander, but jumping into that crap isn't going to help your injury any," Sonic shrugged, "Besides, this ocean doesn't really qualify as water anymore. It's more like quicksand, so swimming sucks for everyone." _

_Shadow arched an eyeridge in slow surprise, wondering where this sudden change of heart came about, "Didn't you just get finished saying there was absolutely no way I was going to get you to jump in?" He asked dryly, "We can't wait for your new 'friend' and her shooter to come back and finish us off. So either get out of my way or I go through you." Ruby eyes narrowed with a hint of irritation, "Don't bother Sonic. You. Cannot. Swim." He punctuated each word like the hedgehog was a slow child._

"_Yeah? And how's the doggy paddle treating you Faker?" Sonic replied sharply, feeling stung from Shadow's barb. He didn't look at the dark hedgehog as he absently kicked a dusty rock into the waters where it slowly began to sink. He scratched a hand through his quills and twitched; he turned at once and flashed a bright smile at Shadow to show he was fine with the decision. Not that it was even remotely convincing._

"_Sending in a gimp to play fetch doesn't really sit my fancy. What kind of hero would I be if I bowed out and let a cripple do all the heavy lifting for me?" Sonic said dryly, sitting on the peer and hanging his legs over the edge. Shadow watched blue legs tremble with concentration, trying to draw enough willpower to push himself off the edge of the pier._

"_I've been shot, not crippled," Shadow replied back acidly – and the doggy paddle suited him just fine thank you very much. _

_He stared at Sonic flatly for a moment and grabbed the hero's wrist before Sonic could shove off into the dark depths. _

"_What are you trying to pull?" He asked quietly, ignoring the startled look on Sonic's face, "You should know better than anyone else that I can take care of myself. The injury will slow me down, but it's hardly life threatening." His eyes narrowed, "If you get rid of that Superman Complex for five minutes you would realize you do not need to save me."_

_Now Shadow was annoyed, with Sonic and himself. Why couldn't this blue fool see that he was just making everything harder? _

_Sonic looked at Shadow in surprise, green eyes watching the dark and bleeding form of the other quietly._

"_I know Shadz," Sonic murmured quietly. He scratched an awkward hand through his quills and smiled back at the annoyed agent. "You've been a lot of help this entire time." He turned his gaze towards the ocean and stared out at it listlessly, "I haven't been much help. Just freaking out over Tails and getting in the way." He shook his head._

_It was true. In many ways, Shadow had become... a sort of rock for Sonic during this whole ordeal. Sonic didn't like having that kind of control taken out of his hands. He didn't like feeling like he was doing nothing, especially since he was capable of so much more. It was time he screwed his head on right and finally did what he was known for doing. Sonic couldn't rely on Shadow forever... After all, Shadow had just taken a bullet for this mission. That was far more than Sonic had any right to ask of him._

_Without another word or before Shadow could open his mouth to reply, Sonic shoved off the pier and down into the thick waters. His heart thudded as he saw the black surface rush towards him, its gummy waves reaching out for him like grasping fingers. Sonic closed his eyes the second he touched the water, his heart racing._

_He hit the water with a soft gloop and he sank slowly down to his hips. However, the ocean didn't seem interested in swallowing Sonic any further._

"_..."_

_Sonic looked up to stare blankly back at Shadow. The two hedgehogs stared at one another blankly for a moment as Sonic wiggled in his spot for a moment and only sunk another inch. Sonic let out a small, sheepish chuckle and shrugged, "...Well, that was mildly anticlimactic."_

_Shadow sighed and he palmed his muzzle, praying to Chaos and Maria for all the patience in the world. He looked around and found a rope that was coiled by one of the posts. He gathered it up and crouched by the edge of the pier, reaching out to loop it under Sonic's arms and his waist, "Idiotic hedgehog." He growled under his breath._

"_I obviously can't dissuade you from your path," Shadow muttered, "So you might as well go prepared in case something goes wrong."_

"_The oil should only extend a few feet beneath the surface," Shadow spoke briskly, as if going through a fast briefing, "If my judgment is anything to go off of – _which it is_ – then the Chaos emerald should be no more than ten feet to eleven o'clock." _

"_Eleven O'clock?" Sonic raised an eyeridge as he slowly sunk down another inch._

"_Forty Five degrees to your left you moron," Shadow translated with an annoyed growl. The dark hedgehog looped the rope around his own waist before moving to get a heavy rock, "Catch." He grunted as he vaulted it over to the blue hedgehog._

_Sonic caught it squarely in the chest, immediately sinking much faster now that he had no air in his lungs and a large rock weighing him down. He fumbled with the heavy stone and practically landed on his rear, the heavy water sloshing and sucking at him. He sank down to his neck and sucked in a lung full of air. _

_Just as he disappeared underneath the surface, Sonic thought he spotted what could have been concern shining in Shadow's ruby eyes._

_But then again, Sonic wasn't _that_ insane._

Shadow did not want to think of how contrary and irritating the hedgehog could be, since there was little point in dwelling on obvious facts. Now that he was alone on the pier, Shadow could only sit by and peer over at the wound in his shoulder. It burned like something fierce, but he was very thankful that his design allowed him to shrug off bullet wounds.

If he hadn't known any better though, he would have thought the sniper was aiming for him. But why him in particular? That was a question that was running through his mind, especially since so far Sonic had been the main focus of this mysterious person's grudge.

He decided not to think about it.

It took Shadow a great deal of patience not to reel Sonic in when he was still taking his sweet time. He knew Sonic had impressive lung capacity thanks to the strain he put on his body by running at superhuman speeds, but this was ridiculous. If Sonic didn't come up with the chaos emerald within the next three seconds, Shadow was going to drag him up and tie the hero to a pier post. If he had to jump in himself after the aggravating argument they had, Shadow would leave Sonic neck deep in oil for his merry band of followers to find later.

Shadow closed his eyes and breathed out evenly through his nose. His shoulder was absolutely on fire and he could not tell if it was actually bleeding still or not. His coat was too thoroughly filmed over with oil for him to tell, but his arm felt warm. There was no use trying to sniff out the scent of blood in the overpowering stench of grease that clouded around him. He could feel his body trembling slightly and he forced it under control.

It was true he could shake off most bullet wounds, but that didn't mean he was immune to them. After all, he had a hole blown through his body. Regardless, Shadow could handle the pain despite how Professor Gerald had artificially heightened his senses.

But that didn't make Shadow any less cranky.

He silently told himself that he was not worried about that stupid Faker, and just irritated over the wound and Sonic's incessant mothering that had him glued to the spot.

Luckily he did not have to wait long for Sonic to resurface.

A quilled, blackened head poked up free from the oily surface. Fawn hands were gripping the slippery rope and hoisting their dead weight up through the thick waters. Shadow observed the scene, feeling breath that he didn't know he had been holding finally escape his burning lungs. A profound sense of relief escaped over him as he silently watched Sonic pull himself out.

It was slightly nauseating as he watched the thick ocean suck hungrily at its escaping prey. It was not a scene typically found in a romance fanfiction as Sonic looked less than appealing with globs of oil sticking to his blue pelt.

Shadow dragged his good hand underneath the other's arm and hoisted him up the rest of the way, careless of how Sonic was heaving for breath. There was a small sort of tremor in the way that Sonic's quills shook under the grease that hinted at how difficult it had been for the hero to jump into that ocean. Shadow chose not to comment on the way Sonic's fingers clenched tightly at the slick boards of the pier, feeling somewhat uneasy that he had been unable to do anything while Sonic stubbornly jumped into the gelatinous sea. It was clear that Sonic was very much afraid of the ocean, but had still plunged into it.

"Before I kick you back into the water for pulling that stunt, I'd like to know if you at least recovered the emerald like you were supposed to," Shadow asked blandly. He wasn't going to comment on Sonic's fear, or his annoyance, moving right on ahead to avoid the awkward questions of 'Are you alright?' that he simply wanted to ask the hedgehog.

"Always the beacon of sunshine, aren't you?" Sonic's chest expanded heavily as he fought desperately for breath. It was clear that he had been under for quite some time, but his hand twisted back into his quills to withdraw one of the emeralds. It glittered brightly despite the grimy coat of filth coating its glossy surface. He flashed Shadow a tired grin, a relieved look in his eyes as he was clearly grateful to be back on solid ground, "I don't know how Mario can handle jumping into pipes to get around – I'll take running over ankle deep sewage any day."

Shadow helped Sonic to his feet and merely rolled his eyes.

"You smell awful," Shadow wasted no time in congratulations. After all, Sonic had gotten far too used to having his chaos emeralds in the open space or even remarkably out in the middle of the street for no adequately explored reason. Not that Shadow was complaining, not by any stretch of the imagination. He had obtained a few emeralds in that very fashion. Those had been easy to find, even with the added difficulty of trying not to be tentacle raped by Doom's eye.

"Yeah, and like you're a bouquet of freshly cut roses," Sonic sniffed, giving Shadow's grimy coat a look of annoyance. The blue hedgehog had to admit, Shadow had a way of making strange things look cool. Sonic would be lying if he denied he wasn't envious of his dark counterpart in that regard. Who else could make getting covered in slime and gunk fanservice? Although that didn't dampen Sonic's spirits one bit – he was SEGA's poster boy for a reason. No one could match his sparkling smile.

"So what now?" Sonic asked, even as he removed a sneaker to pour its gunky contents out onto the pier. Shadow was currently in possession of the emerald Sonic had gone through such pains to recover and watched as his dark counterpart attempted to clean its surface of filth.

"We go get cleaned up," Shadow replied shortly.

"And to get that shoulder of yours checked out!" Sonic piped up. The poisonous glare sent his way from Shadow could have melted bone, but Sonic was immune to its effects and thus it was promptly ignored, "Aw c'mon Faker – you know just as well as I do that in order to fight the boss, we need full heart containers – " Sonic flushed a bit in embarrassment before quickly amending himself, "I mean rings."

Shadow pinched the ridge of his nose, thinking Sonic had been hanging out with Nintendo's poster boys for too long.

Sonic hurriedly continued, "After all, you're not a robot. Bullet wounds can't be shaken off by slowpokes like you."

Shadow's glare intensified by several hundred degrees. So much in fact, Sonic thought the zone would be in danger of bursting into flames if his companion didn't ease up soon.

"Oh I know!" Sonic slung his arm around Shadow, which strangely made the agent stiffen and still. Sonic figured it was because he was covered in inches of grime, filth, slime, and Chaos only _knew_ what, "Why don't we go to Cream house? Her mom is pretty good about fixing up a few bumps and scrapes!"

"And bullet wounds?" Shadow asked, somewhat uncertain. Going to a hospital for treatment was unappealing, but he wasn't sure what kind of first aid a stay at home mom could administer. Certainly a certifiable doctor would be better suited than Ms. Vanilla would...

"Oh sure!" Sonic said flippantly, "She's seen it all! Just don't put your feet on her table," Sonic said in a quiet voice, "That will make Ms. Vanilla angry...

"And you won't like her when she's angry."

Somehow, that did nothing to comfort Shadow.

-::-

Nack on the other hand, could think of nothing else besides the fact that he had missed his target. That, and he was waiting for his employer's easily sparked fury to rear its ugly head and tear him a new asshole.

Mary Sue was completely ignoring the weasel though, instead choosing to play with a collection of action figures.

Finally, Nack could not take the silence any longer and the weasel snagged his hat between his fingers to fidget with it.

"You're not... angry that I didn't kill Shadow?" Nack asked, somewhat hesitantly. He looked over at his employer, halfway expecting her to break out into a villainous monologue at any second. The silence that stretched between them was almost maddening, made no easier by Mary's doll playing.

The human snorted derisively, her eyes rolling with discontent. She stood up and tossed the figurines haphazardly behind her, uncaring of where they landed or what condition they would be in, "Of course not Fang my dear flunkie."

Ignoring the weasel's black scowl, Mary continued, "Despite my overwhelming hatred for Shadow the Fanservice and how his presence single handedly destroyed a beautiful franchise – I didn't think you could actually kill him."

Nack just knew he was going to regret asking, but he couldn't help himself. His pride as a sniper was already smarting since he missed his target, and perhaps he was just a glutton for punishment and couldn't help but play with the fire that was his unhinged employer, "What makes you say that?"

Mary turned, lazy brown eyes sliding over towards Nack, "I sent you after Shadow because I wanted to see if he had Main Character status."

The weasel saw how Mary said this all with a very straight face – almost as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He promptly decided to concuss himself at the soonest available moment. He very much regretted ever asking. Why had he thought he could get a sane and logical response out of her?

"Obviously he has the protection of being a major character - a pity since I would have loved to get that rodent to stop sniffing around where he didn't belong," Mary continued, oblivious to the slightly offended look Nack sent her.

The weasel shrugged his shoulders and eyed Mary idly, "So, then I can go? Your plan to kill Shadow apparently get off the ground..."

Surprisingly, this elicited a strange titter of laughter from the human. Nack felt like his heart was plummeting down to his feet at the mad woman's grin.

"Of course not silly! Your contract says you are in my service until Shadow is dead!" She sang, which immediately had Nack wanting to tear out chunks of his fur.

"Then what the hell do you want me to do woman?" Nack snarled, gnashing white fangs together sharply. He was not nearly drunk enough to handle this woman, and if he cleared out any more of his booze cabinet he would die from alcohol poisoning. As it stood, it was taking Nack every ounce of his concentration just to remain upright and not in a drunken sway. Mary's presence was sobering and Nack hated it.

"Oh you will do nothing except stay on the sidelines and look pretty while my army of bots do all the heavy lifting," Mary smiled and turned towards an impressive standing door. It was already opened with rows and rows of familiar looking robots. The sight alone caused even the hardened mercenary pause.

Nack gulped slightly and his fur bristled.

He really needed a drink _now_.

Metal Sonic.

And not just one of them, there were rows and rows of them. Hundreds of Metal Sonics stood on standby, awaiting their first instructions.

"I always thought it was silly that Robotnik never used more of these lovely creations and only sent them out one at a time," Mary smiled, "I even altered their AI so they won't douche up my plans like in that shitty OVA. I don't need my mooks thinking and adapting more than I do."

None of that made any sense to Nack, but he was too busy staring at the army in open horror to do much more than to reach for his flask.

"And this will take down Shadow?" Nack asked hesitantly, swearing mentally as his flask turned up with nothing more than a few drops of whiskey left in it.

Mary snorted, "Of course not! These are meant to tear Sonic apart." A cruel grin spread over the human's cheeks, "I have something special planned for Shadow."

"Observe! Metal Sonics stand aside!"

Much to Nack's surprise, the robots immediately obeyed. In one motion, they twisted in a clustered group to line the sides of the long wall. It left a very narrow path, and the soft footfalls of someone approaching reached the weasel's sensitive ears.

"Meet the newest android in my collection Nack," Mary introduced with a victorious smirk, "I've worked very hard on my technology to obtain a realism in androids that matches or surpasses humans and Mobians alike. I like to call it the 'SHARK JUMPTER 2000.'"

"It's nice to meet you Mr. Nack," The android said with sweet politeness dripping from her voice. It nearly had the weasel stumbling back in nausea and shock. The android pushed blond hair out of her eyes and smoothed pale hands over a light blue gown. She smiled gently in greeting and looked over at the mobian.

"You may call me... Maria."

-::-

_**((brick'd)) **_

_**Yes guys. To anyone still hanging around for an update, you guys waited for THIS. LOL! Sorry if there are more bad puns in this chapter than usual. I couldn't help myself. I just came back from my trip and I couldn't help but think of awful pun after awful pun after awful pun. I deserve bricks thrown in my direction.**_

_**Hate it? Love it? Let me know what you think!**_


	8. Health Point

So I figured it was about time to update this story. I can't count how many times I attempted to type up a chapter for this fic, but what can I say? In the words of the great Tony Stark "It takes us a while to get any traction."

ALSO. This is totally random, but whenever I read a Harry Potter fanfiction and I see manipulative!Dumbledore, a part of me dies a little on the inside. It's like telling me that Santa doesn't exist.

-::-

Two soggy hedgehogs crashed face first into a manicured lawn. Plastic flamingos decorating the grass toppled over, wire feathers bent at odd angles. It was difficult to tell where each hedgehog's legs began or ended since Sonic's dip in his mud bath had turned the normal vibrancy of his coat several hundred shades darker.

'Mental note,' he groaned to himself, 'Secure yourself a bath.'

Before Sonic could regain his wits, he found himself shoved off of his companion and eating another mouthful of dirt – courtesy of an irritable Shadow.

"A simple, 'Hey Sonic, can you move your tail' would have sufficed," Sonic jumped onto his feet and rubbed the tip of his nose with a dirty hand. Shadow picked himself up more slowly from the ground, a fact that did not go unnoticed by the blue hero. Green eyes noticed how Shadow held himself, his stance casual – but protecting his injured side. Sonic was a seasoned enough fighter to pick up that detail, but he was also well aware that if anyone else wanted to pick a fight with them they would notice Shadow's weakened side as well.

He let that train of thought trail off before he pursued it any further.

"Stop looking at me like that," Shadow's voice came to his left. Sonic blinked and focused back on the hedgehog that was already making his way to the side of Vanilla's house. His target was the water hose tied to the side of the house. Sonic hid a grin. Ms. Vanilla was a scary lady when provoked.

And apparently Shadow wasn't moving as slow as Sonic had thought.

"I'm not staring," Sonic said with only a hint of childish defensiveness, but zipped to Shadow's side without complaint.

Shadow didn't look up, but turned on the faucet and unraveled the hose, "Yes you are."

"Are not." A wider grin.

"If you were any more obvious about it, you would have whipped out a camera," Shadow rolled his eyes and his ruby gaze flicked up to Sonic's in a split second. An arrogant smirk, "This is my good side."

Then as soon as the smirk was there, it was gone. But it left something odd twisting in Sonic's chest and rooting him down to the ground. A delightful shiver raced down his spine and he rolled his neck in an attempt to shake it off his tail.

"Whoa Shads, I didn't know you were a fan of the camera," Sonic recovered his wits quick enough to jump on that. After all it was a fair assumption for him to have made. Ever picture he had seen of Shadow had been with the dark hedgehog turned towards the side or almost completely facing away from the camera. Although now that he thought of it...

"Hey," He said with purposeful slowness, enjoying the way Shadow's ears twitched towards him, "Is that why you're always facing away from the camera? Trying to get them to take your good side?"

Shadow's muzzle reddened under Sonic's scrutiny and he shook his head, "Of course not!" He denied with ice in his voice. Sonic didn't buy it, smelling a morsel of blood like a shark in water. Oh this was too good.

"Hoping to get on the cover of GQ – or maybe on a billboard at E3?" Sonic teased, "You know they are really selling the dark angsty characters now, you might have a real shot. You are very mysterious."

Shadow gave him a blank look as if he could not possibly believe the words that came out of Sonic's mouth, "You're a high functioning sociopath – aren't you?" He asked, as if all his suspicions had finally paid off.

"You're calling me a sociopath?" Sonic looked a bit impressed, "Kettle, this is pot – come in kettle."

Shadow's retort was to spray Sonic in the face with Vanillia's hose. It was said Sonic's scream could be heard three zones over. A scream which of course drew the attention of an angry mother rabbit.

"_What is going on out here?"_

-::-

"Not that I'm complaining or anything—"

"Really?" Rouge interrupted the fidgety Knuckles, sapphire eyes regarding him with amusement, "Then what exactly would you call those strange noises that have been coming out of your mouth for the past hour and a half?"

Knuckles shot her a withering glare but continued without acknowledging her question, " – but what are we doing here?"

Rouge smirked at the impatient echidna and tapped a thin finger against the tip of his nose. It was times like this she couldn't help but admire the pure differences between herself and Knuckles. He was hot tempered and militaristic – almost like her, but in a completely different way. Ironically speaking, she was skilled at what she did; a professional thief that had military training from GUN. Knuckles on the other hand had no such elite training, but he did well enough on his own just by carving out his treasure hunting path.

She grinned. It was true Rouge could be hot-headed when something she believed to be hers was taken away without her consent. Most of the time she was level-headed, calm and in control. She only lost control when her personal greed or agenda began to rear its head – gems. She sighed to herself. The pretty stones were her one vice.

Her gaze slid back to Knuckles.

Well, perhaps not her _only_ vice.

The echidna was unlike her in a lot of ways. He was solid, strong and steady. She was small, flighty and agile. They were completely different, and despite Knuckles' occasional lapses in control, he was not the typical stupid muscle one would see in a gang. He was clever in his own way, not completely unlike Rouge's own brand of manipulative cunning, but close enough they could have fun.

Of course with Rouge's finger on his nose and long stretch of silence that hung between them, it seemed the echidna's infamous temper would boil over. Had his fur really been that red? He really needed to check his blood pressure.

"The communication links between Shadow and I are compromised," Rouge finally answered his question, causing some of the building frustration in Knuckles' eyes to lessen. The bat decided to have some mercy on the poor echidna, mainly because Tails was missing and they were not able to get in contact with Sonic. He was not happy to leave the Master Emerald unattended for long, but he knew Angel Island was their next stop so he was cooperating for now, "We need to get in contact with those two."

"That's all well and good," Knuckles said with barely contained impatience. Violet eyes darted towards the bright red door with gold numbers planted on the surface, "But what are we doing at _Amy's_ house."

"Who better to help us find Sonic?" Rouge grinned as way of explanation. She knocked on the door and waited. She knew someone was home, her sensitive hearing could pick up the shuffling of feet tromping around further inside the house and simply waited.

"I'm going to have Sonic tagged next time," Knuckles sighed, "He might prefer it to his hysterical girlfri—." He clammed up a second later when the door swung open to reveal a distressed looking Amy Rose.

"Rouge! Knuckles!" She blinked at them from her doorway, her anticipation draining away. She had been hoping for Sonic, "What are you two doing here? Have you heard from Sonic?"

"No," Amy looked quite irritable about that fact, "Is everyone alright? I lost track of everyone at the party and ended up getting separated with the Chaotix."

"Not quite Amy," Rouge ventured and looked down the hallway of the pink hedgehog's apartment complex, "Is there any chance we could talk in private?"

At Rouge's pointed look inside Amy's apartment, the hedgehog immediately jumped aside, blushing the color of her fur, "Oh excuse me! Where are my manners, come in!"

The two Mobians filed into her apartment and shut the door behind them, locking it securely as they did. It was a cozy place, with yellow walls that reminded Rouge a lot like daisies, and a white trim. It was neat and comfortable; with matching plush furniture that decorated the living room they were gathered.

"What's the matter?" Amy looked anxious, her hands twisting the golden rings circling her wrists. A nervous habit by the looks of it Rouge noted.

"Tails is missing and we can't get in contract with his moronic brother," Knuckles cut straight to the point, "We need your help finding Sonic."

Rouge nodded in agreement, rolling her eyes over Knuckles blunt process of tossing small talk out the window. She preferred to use a few conversation starters to ease into a difficult discussion that would be tough for all individuals involved. The echidna believed it was a waste of valuable time. In this one instance – not that she would ever admit it to the smug echidna – but she agreed with his approach. She couldn't help but feel there was a timer rapidly counting down to _something_.

"I was attacked after communicating with Sonic and Shadow over what I believed was a secured line, I was heading towards the kit's workshop," Rouge sighed, "We figured you're the best at follow—"She cleared her throat and amended herself with a quick smile, "—_finding_ Sonic and could help us."

Amy either ignored the slight or didn't catch it, because her green eyes were wide and her gloved hand was pressed to her muzzle in shock, "Poor Tails!" She cried and wrung her hands. A second later she was jumping to her feet with an air of determination.

"Of course I'll help you find Sonic! The string of love which connects us can guide me to him from all over Mobius!" She fluttered her hands and took Rouge's wrists, looking anxious, "I would have looked for Sonic sooner, but GUN hasn't allowed anyone in or out of the city since the attack. There's a road block and a perimeter set up. They even initiated a curfew."

It didn't surprise Rouge one bit that GUN was taking the threat seriously. GUN didn't know the meaning of the world subtlety, but believed whole heartedly in the saying 'there's no kill quite like overkill.'

"Don't worry about GUN hon," Rouge smiled, "I'll get you out no problem."

She arched an eyeridge at Knuckles, "But how on earth did _you_ get in and out?"

"Scaled the building and glided. Broke a few mechs too," Knuckles shrugged

"Those mechs cost two million dollars apiece, courtesy of tax payer dollars."

Money was just a number to Knuckles so he simply shrugged again, "We trash those things all the time. Maybe if GUN didn't want their toys destroyed they would make sure they refrained from attacking everything that moved."

Rouge set her hands on her hips and puffed out her cheeks. She flashed Knuckles an icy look, ignoring the air of smugness hanging around him, "Why didn't you think to tell me about all this that was going on?"

"You have eyes don't you? You could have looked out the window and seen the patrols, doesn't take a genius to figure out," Knuckles narrowed his eyes at her, "Besides, I glide, you fly. I didn't think it was a big deal."

"Well Amy can do neither, so it's a big deal now," Rouge shot back.

Amy Rose cleared her throat before Knuckles could respond, "Quit flirting you two, daylight is burning."

Rouge and Knuckles whirled on the pink hedgehog in a second, their protests hanging on open mouths for a brief second before Amy thought to cut them off prematurely, "We just need to get out of the city right? And to do so we need to make as small a mess as possible."

She looked pointedly at Knuckles, which told him on no certain terms was he to smash any more mechs unless they were actively gunning for them. The echidna shrugged, prior experience telling him the dumb-as-bricks robots would attack them regardless if he did anything to provoke them. He would be breaking million dollar equipment before the day was over.

"Will it be possible for one of you to carry me out to the subway station? I've seen Sonic run along the tracks to the Mystic Ruins before and GUN has shut down any transport out of here," Amy suggested, "We can meet up by Tails' workshop."

Rouge was reluctant to head back to the place she had been attacked, but saw the sense in Amy's plan. It was the single most direct way out of the city without GUN's notice, and it was better than skulking around in apartment buildings or the casino.

"That's a good idea," Knuckles put in, "I didn't have much of a chance to look around his place before I was attacked too. I thought it would be easier if I just grabbed you and got out of there."

Rouge raised an eyeridge at that, surprised to hear Knuckles had difficulty dispatching some of the attacking robots. She didn't comment on the matter and instead nodded, the wheels in her head turning. She hadn't found the mechs there particularly difficult to destroy, except for the ones which had incapacitated her. That led her to believe there had been more than one kind there.

Interesting.

If there had been any difference, Rouge hadn't taken the time to tell the machines apart from one another. Fighting for her life tended to leave her with slight tunnel-vission to the threat and where they were coming from.

Amy clapped her hands together, her smile pointed and eyes gleaming with a wicked determination, "So what're we waiting for? Let's find Sonic!"

"And Tails," Knuckles reminded her.

"And Tails!"

-::-

"That could have gone better," Sonic rubbed his ears after all the screaming had stopped. Ms. Vanilla had come out of her house, angry over the intrusion on her property. Upon seeing the two dirty and injured hedgehogs, her wrath had calmed down to a mere rumble of thunder – which in Sonic's opinion was vastly improved to the Tsunami they were about to endure from the rabbit.

Shadow's blank stare hadn't helped the situation at all, nor did his refusal to admit to the rabbit he was injured. It took Sonic's quick thinking and smooth talking to keep them in one shape. After explaining that Shadow had gotten shot, Ms. Vanilla had switched off her maternal instincts that reminded Sonic so much of a tigress than a rabbit, and went full on into mothering mode. As soon as they finished washing themselves off, they could come inside and she would dress their scrapes and bumps.

"Thanks for leaving me out to dry," Sonic murmured after she was gone.

"Excuse me for not being the life of the party," Shadow replied, patience drawing thin as it always did around the insufferable hero, "I'm not what you would call a 'social butterfly.'"

"Well can't you attempt to be a little zesty?" Sonic demanded, a pout on his face which said volumes of what he thought about Shadow's tongue-in-cheek behavior.

The corner of Shadow's lip twitched.

"Zesty?" He asked, dryness seeping through every word, "I think you took too hard a tumble into the ocean Sonic."

Sonic's frown deepened.

" 'A lie can travel halfway around the world while truth is just putting on its shoes,'" Sonic quoted.

Shadow arched an eyeridge at Sonic, "Mark Twain – I'm impressed."

"It surprises you to know I can read?" Sonic grinned despite the jab at his intellect. After all, Shadow thought he was the smartest thing since Mother Brain. He threw his hand around Shadow's shoulders, careful to keep pressure off his injured side, "Of course it does – but that's not the point." Sonic shrugged.

"You think I'm lying."

Red eyes flicked towards Sonic, his gaze knowing. Shadow's face remained impassive, the bored scowl he perpetually had remained engraved on his face. Okay, so it wasn't precisely impassive, but Sonic was willing to fudge the facts enough to know Shadow wasn't offended by being called a liar.

Sonic smiled thinly, "'Think?' That would be too optimistic. I prefer 'know.'"

Ruby eyes flashed and Sonic grinned. _There_ was Shadow's carefully reigned in temper.

"And what brought upon this unusual bout of pessimism?" Shadow asked, dragging the hose around the house and twisting a bare hand against the faucet.

Sonic flashed him a predatory grin, "I thought by now you'd trust me," He purred, perhaps feeling more put out than what he wanted to admit by his counterpart's frigid restraint, "Maybe I was wrong?"

Shadow's hand stilled, fingers frozen on the icy metal he could feel beneath his tattered glove. Sonic watched Shadow's movements as his partner's gaze lifted to his own, searching him with the precision of a super computer. Sonic wondered if he could see through him. Under Shadow's gaze it felt like he was being pulled apart and stripped down to the barest of his insecurities. Hints of which he buried under laughs and layers of self-confidence Sonic sometimes faked.

"I trust you," Shadow admitted, in such a way Sonic had to strain to hear it. His face remained closed off and as impersonal as he always did, but Sonic thought he might have spotted just a fleck of vulnerability behind those battle hardened eyes, "I don't wish to share the details of my condition with everyone."

Sonic once again felt something twist inside his chest he could almost recognize. Shadow trusted him. The realization struck him like a semi-truck, especially since the people Shadow trusted could be placed on one hand. Two of those people were dead.

It occurred to Sonic that he and Shadow had gone through a lot together. Plus a strange dream Sonic once had about time travel and a burning city, with a weird hedgehog that had bird-quills. Sonic shook that thought pattern off, realizing he was getting distracted from the magnitude of his epiphany. He and Shadow had forged a kind of bond over their various battles together. Enough for them both to trust one another.

Sonic thought his head exploded just a little bit.

Shadow was beginning to look a little uncomfortable, and Sonic's muzzle reddened when he realized he had fallen into dumbfounded silence. He smiled and hopped over to Shadow, his body buzzing with as much happiness as he had been able to feel since realizing his brother was kidnapped by a psychopath. He took the hose from Shadow and leaned over him to turn the knob.

Water, a little warm from being under the direct beating of the sun sprayed out on the lawn, a rainbow stretching in the mist between them.

"Don't worry Shads, I still think you look tough," Sonic smiled and sprayed himself down, working the water through his fur until the cobalt began to shine through once more. He sighed with relief as the sludge dropped off his fur and began to puddle around his sneakers. When he was done he turned towards Shadow and passed the hose off to him, knowing better than to offer to help rinse the darker hedgehog. Shadow already said he trusted him and there were only so many blows to ones pride a man could take in one day, "Come inside when you're done and we'll get that shoulder patched up."

Shadow's only response was a grunt of acknowledgement, but Sonic knew his grumpy friend was smiling.

-::-

The process of getting his shoulder stitched up wasn't nearly as unpleasant as Shadow would have thought. He had been shot before, but at that time he had the pleasure of being taken to a hospital for actual medical attention. In this case he had a stay-at-home mom, a spool of thread and a sterilized needle.

_This is the_ second _most unsanitary thing I've ever done_. Shadow thought to himself. He sat still, rigid and stone-faced as Vanilla sewed him up. Sonic was sitting uncomfortably close, an expression of utmost fascination on his face.

"You're taking far too much pleasure out of seeing this," Shadow growled softly to Sonic, careful not to breathe too much and disrupt the passing of Vanilla's needle.

"Not really," Sonic's gaze refused to waver, "I'm usually in your spot so I don't ever have a chance to watch."

"I'm glad I could entertain you."

"You heal very quickly," Vanilla smiled at Shadow, "You only need about six stitches."

Shadow cradled the chaos emerald in his bad hand and silently contributed his healing rate both to his genealogy and the gem, "Of course, but thank you regardless for the assistance." He tried to get up, but Sonic was pressing him back down into his seat within seconds.

"Hey Mr. Man of Steel, you still need stitches so sit your tail down," Sonic snorted shook his head, "We don't want to leave a gaping hole for our crazy friend Ms. Psychopath to punch."

"You have some logic in your reasoning," Shadow nodded with some reluctance as Vanilla finished her job.

"Would you boys like some cookies and milk?" She asked with a bright smile, "Cream is having a tea-party in her room with Cheese and would love to see you."

Sonic cleared his throat and looked at Ms. Vanilla with a somewhat strained smile, "We would love to ma'am, but right now we're on an important mission. We'll come back to play with Cream after we rescue Tails."

Ms. Vanilla sighed with disappointment, but seemed to understand as she packed up the supplies to her first aid kit and disappeared into the bathroom to store them. Shadow turned a questioning look towards Sonic and the hero shook his head, as if in despair.

"The last time I agreed to tea time with Cream, I was forced into a dress and frilly hat," Sonic shuddered, looking around. Paranoia over being heard by one of the rabbits in the house clearly dominated his mind and Sonic cleared his throat, "I couldn't leave for hours. _Amy_ had to rescue me."

Shadow stared at Sonic, wrapping his mind around the image of Sonic in a womanly hat and dress. He had to admit, the mental image was not one he would soon forget – he had yet to decide if that was a good or bad thing, "I presume there is photographic evidence of your plight?"

The poisonous glare Sonic sent Shadow could kill an elephant, "You're so getting the dress when we get back."

"Don't count on it Mrs. Nesbit."

-::-

An update!

I'm shocked too.

Jeez has it really been two years? Man, I'm rusty as all get out. Sorry if this chapter sucks guys. If there are any readers still out there. What can I say other then, "wow I really suck at this"

Reviews are cherished


	9. Team Select

**READ THIS NOTE: **

You know what boggles my mind? Excluding _How to Train Your Werehog_, this fic is my most popular one.

_**This one.**_

So correct me if I'm wrong! In my profile I have a poll that is asking you guys what fic you want updated first. I will be making a roster of sorts to make a schedule on how this is going to work out. The story with the most votes will get updated first, then the second most second, and third last.

**Or hell, maybe I'll just vomit updates.**

-::-

"Yes sir, thank you," Rouge sighed as she hung up the phone. She had decided to forgo the communicator at her wrist entirely in an attempt to keep whoever was bugging her channels from getting to her conversation. She was in Tails' workshop while Knuckles and Amy picked apart the robots that had been smashed apart. A few were still cycling, but between the three of them, they had managed to dispatch them.

Surprisingly enough, there had been many different kinds of robots besides the ones Rouge had fought. It seemed like whoever sent them foresaw who their opponents would be. They had a ton of machines there suited to speed, flight, strength, and agility. Not only that, they seemed formatted specifically against certain people.

The sonar wave lengths that had floored her before were designed to attack a bat's sensitive hearing. Knuckles had been able to take them out because his ears weren't capable of picking up the pitch of the horrible noise. Once he had, more robots took their place, ones meant to deal specifically with someone of his strength – which explained the injuries done to his chest. But the three of them made a diverse enough team to take out the rest of the robots lurking around, to which Rouge was grateful. She didn't think she could stand another assault on her poor ears like the last time.

Once had been enough thank you very much.

Rouge sighed and reclined on one of Tails' plush sofas. It was worn out and torn at a few corners, no doubt thanks to his sharp-quilled brother, but it had a certain weathered comfort about it that made the couch timeless. She sank into it with a quiet purr of pleasure, resisting the strong desire to drop off to sleep now.

She couldn't though, her Commander had given her too much to think about.

Shadow and Sonic were no longer at Eggman's base. She hadn't thought they'd stick around there, but now that left her with absolutely no idea which direction they could be heading in. GUN had the doctor in custody, which was something – but that didn't tell her if those two morons were okay or not. Shadow ought to know better than to leave her hanging like this, she grouched to herself.

Oh he was going to get it out of his quilled tail once he got back.

Rouge was brought out of her murderous thoughts when something loud and metal clanked heavily on Tails' scarred kitchen table. She jolted out of her drowsy, homicidal state of imagining Shadow's punishment and looked over at the table where Knuckles and Amy were hunched over a scrap of twisted metal.

"What's this?" Rouge sashayed over, setting a hand on Knuckles' shoulder as she leaned in close to him. She hid a pleased smirk as the echidna's muzzle turned a lovely shade of red to match his fur, but didn't comment on her proximity. The headstrong fool, Rouge grinned – she would have him blowing steam out of his ears at this rate. While that was a tempting thought, she decided to pass on it. She needed Knuckles functioning with his higher brain, so she backed off just a hair.

"It's one of the bots that attacked you," Knuckles supplied, glancing over at Rouge with a flush on his cheeks that was either from frustration, anger, embarrassment, or shyness, "There's a tracer on it. These are the old units Robotnik used while he invaded Angel Island, so I recognize these models. Before the lot of them started trashing my island."

Knuckles was clearly still sore about the ordeal, even if it happened a long time ago.

He turned the mech over and leaned in close, "These were glitch, so the doctor told me he had trackers planted into them so he could keep a log of where they had been." He felt around the edges and his fingers tapped against a hidden compartment, "This isn't really my thing but –"

"There!" Amy said with excitement as she saw something lift off the side of the robot. She plucked it up with quick fingers and turned it over. She looked over at Rouge, "Think you could access its information?"

The bat flashed her a saucy wink and took it from her with a flourish, "I'm no Tails, but if this thing is still working I can get all of its dirty little secrets."

She leaned over to Knuckles and planted a kiss on his muzzle, "Good work hotshot. I might just keep you around after all!" She winked at Knuckles, who looked like his brain was beginning to short circuit. Amy just gave a sigh of amusement and sighed about how _romantic_ they were.

Rouge just laughed and sauntered off to the computer, hoping to get a location of where these robots were last maintained. She was a betting bat, which no doubt came from her running a club, so she'd wager that wherever these things were made – that would be where she would find the two pains in her tail.

"We're coming Shadow," Rouge murmured as she plugged the device into Tails' computer and booted it up.

-::-

Tails was laying flat on his back in his cell, using his super brain to come up with different ways of escape. At the moment, his best bet was tunneling his way to freedom with a spoon, but he had yet to convince the guard to give him one. In fact the robotic guard seemed determined to ignore him. Not even for a potty break.

Mary Sue, while deranged, was unfortunately not stupid.

Damn genre-savvy enemies.

She had made certain not to talk to him for any length of time, so he had no idea what she was planning. All he managed to gather, was that she had an obsessive love that bordered on insanity for his brother (who was he kidding, they passed the border on 'crazy' a long time ago). He was halfway expecting her to have plans to wear Sonic's pelt if she won. Tails shivered at the image, but he couldn't help himself from thinking about other horrors the lady might cause.

She would sew all of his friends together and wear them as a blanket when she went to bed at night. The unfortunate thing was that Mary Sue's mental sickness was far enough along that scenario, along with any other gross imagery Tails could think of was entirely possible.

So while Tails was attempting to gather any scraps of metal he could find to create a sort of weapon for himself, Mary Sue dropped by for a visit. Which was all the same to Tails, he hadn't managed to squirrel together anything of importance, just a rusty screw, some wire, and what looked like a moldy potato.

_Perfect,_ he thought to himself and shot his pile of supplies a pitiful look, _I have a crazy visitor and my weapon of mass destruction hasn't been assembled yet_.

"Why hello Miles," Mary Sue strode up to the bars of his cell, a large burlap sack hanging on her back, "I'm glad you look to be in healthy spirits."

Contrary to what Mary Sue said, Tails did not feel like he was even remotely in healthy spirits. In fact, he felt like he was a few rings away from hitting zero.

"What do you want?" Tails asked, sliding his chained namesakes over his pile of provisions. What he wouldn't give for a paper clip to pick the locks, "Come to gloat?"

Mary Sue shook her head and checked her watch, "No, I've planned my gloating to commence in about twelve hours. I have a strict schedule to maintain Miles, although I don't suppose you have ever made a carefully crafted plan before, so I don't blame you for your rush."

Tails closed his eyes and counted backwards from ten, praying to whatever deity that was listening for patience.

"What's in the bag?" He asked, knowing she wanted him to ask. Why else would she be here swinging that thing around like she was Santa Claus.

"Why I'm glad you asked Mr. Prower!" Mary Sue crowed and dumped the contents of the bag upside down on the ground. Colorful tubes, each glowing a different color spilled over the ground, but managed to stop their descent without touching the floor. They hovered and rotated in clusters, just by looking Tails could see how massive a collection she had gathered. Her eyes gleamed with wicked glee and she very nearly started bouncing up and down on her heels, "Recognize them?"

It took a moment of analyzing the cylinders, but Tails eventually saw what they were. It had been a long time since he last saw them.

"Chaos drives?" Tails frowned and looked at them, blue eyes switching up towards Mary Sue, "What're you doing with those?"

Mary Sue ignored the question as she picked one up, holding the cylinder up to the light, "Crystallized Chaos energy, created by Professor Gerald to power Project SHADOW."

A smile drew over her face, "It took me forever to find these. After the ARK blew up, these were scattered all over earth. But I found them. I found them all!"

Tails looked at Mary Sue, unsure what to think about the woman in front of him. He slid a hand through one of the bars, careful not to touch the edges as he swiped one of the drives without her noticing, "So are you using them to power your mechs?"

"Hm?" Mary Sue asked, as if distracted by the question. She looked at Tails as if seeing him for the first time and her smile took on a razor sharp quality, not noticing how Tails was attempting to look innocent, "Of course not. I gathered these drives for one purpose and one purpose only."

"And that is?" Tails prompted, curious to see how much of her plan she would reveal to him.

Mary Sue smiled and gathered up her drives, stuffing back into her bag, "I'm planning on baiting a trap of course." She gave out a bark of mad laughter, "I have plenty more where _these_ came from!"

And with that, Mary Sue left Tails alone, as she screamed for poor Nack.

"So, just to be clear, that _wasn't_ gloating?" Tails called after her, but got no response.

The fox waited for his sentry to look the other way before pulling out the drive he snagged. It was red, and spun silently in his hand like a beacon of hope.

Tails couldn't prevent the grin that spread over his face.

'_Now we're in business_,' He thought before setting to work, a new and realistic strategy beginning to form in his head, '_Take that Mary Sue – who's the great planner now?_'

-::-

Nack leaned back in his chair, a rifle balanced on a hip as he cleaned it. He was on the phone at the moment, complaining vocally about his new employer in the hopes Mary Sue would hear him and then fire him. Anything would be better than staying in his stagnating contract. It was almost all the insanity he could take, and he was running out of alcohol in rapid succession.

"Quit your whining," The rough voice on the other end of the receiver drawled, obviously not seeing the problem in Nack's complaints, "You're going to start crying over having a job where you get to kill Sonic and Stripes? Hell, I'll take that job from you in a second."

"Yeah, well I know you would," Nack sneered into the phone, "But when I brought it up to her about including you on this plan, the boss started screaming about re-colors and I really have no idea what that even means."

"Re-color—what?" The voice sounded affronted, "Listen, I don't know what that means, but if that bitch calls me that again she's going to have more to worry about than Sonic and his stray pet."

"I don't know, something about swapping color palettes. She stopped making sense after she paid me," He grumbled.

"Fang!" Mary Sue's scream finally reached Nack and the weasel swore.

"Shit that's her," He groaned, earning the interest from his phone buddy.

Mary Sue stormed into view and spotted her mercenary talking on the phone, "What's this? A personal call? You know how I feel about those!"

She snatched the phone away from the weasel and promptly put her foot on his head to prevent him from getting the phone back from him. Obviously she wasn't too concerned about the rifle he was holding.

"Hello?" She asked sweetly, "May I ask who's talking to my man-servant Alfred?"

There was silence on the other line before the listener's sneer came from the phone, "Fuck off lady, it's none of your business who I talk to."

Mary was shocked at the crudeness of the language, but it was also all the information she really needed to know who she was speaking to.

"Why hello there!" She chirruped, still maintaining her air of sweetness, "I hadn't thought I would get the opportunity to speak to you – Scourge is it?"

-::-

Sonic looked up towards the sky as he felt a chill run down his spine.

Shadow frowned and looked around; his senses flaring out to see if there was something he had missed that caused Sonic to stop still in his tracks to just take a look around his surroundings. Seeing that there was nothing there of even remote interest, his gaze fell back onto Sonic, demanding an answer to his silent question.

"I felt a disturbance in the force," Sonic said with an air of mystery, "It was as if a thousand chao cried out at once, and were suddenly silenced."

Shadow waited for clarification, but when it didn't come he prompted Sonic, "_Meaning_?"

Sonic sighed and rubbed a hand against the points of his ears, "I don't know, but I have a feeling things just got a lot worse for us."

"Please don't tell me a bunch of chao just got murdered," Shadow sighed, looking at the hedgehog in distress. Professor Gerald had told him the last time the children of Chaos had been butchered. The echidna weren't exactly the best example to take after in this matter, and Shadow didn't want to have to fight Chaos. Sonic had done that once and in this scenario Shadow was happy taking after his lead.

His list of 'things-to-do-before-the-shit-hits-the-fan-again' was increasing and Shadow was not pleased with its exponential growth. At this moment, he had the task of finding Tails, taking care of their Stalker, Getting in contact with Rouge somehow, and a bullet wound that throbbed at his shoulder. Adding a pissed off god to it was not something he looked forward to.

"No," Sonic said, much to Shadow's relief, "I just think our resident psychopath is planning on screwing with us again."

Shadow didn't respond and Sonic took that moment to look at his partner, once more trying to assess whether or not the grumpy hedgehog was okay. Shadow would put on an impassive, serious face most of the time, but he was the type that would treat a compound fracture like a sprain. Shadow was proud, Sonic noted – a lot like himself in that matter. Neither hedgehog wanted to admit that they were so similar despite the differences in backgrounds and training.

In Sonic's observations, he saw that even after having been shot, Shadow stood at a near parade-rest. Straight shoulders, perfect posture. He was so serious even when he was relaxed. A fond smile flickered over Sonic's face and he hooked an arm around Shadow's neck before his partner could resist.

"So what's the plan now?" Sonic asked his darker counterpart, giving Shadow the reins to call the next shot. It wasn't a trust he put easily in other peoples' hands – especially with his brother's life at stake, but he figured Shadow had earned it at this point. Besides the GUN agent was most likely still nursing his wounded pride after getting shot. Really, he must have been getting rusty doing all those milk runs for Commander Towers.

As expected, Shadow gave Sonic a look of deep suspicion, unsure whether the hedgehog was being serious about letting him take the lead. He met Sonic's steady, emerald gaze, and something between them passed. It was a trust Shadow had seen before, but never directed at _him_ to quite a degree.

His heart spluttered in a combination of fear, surprise, and blind joy.

Shadow promptly told it to shut the hell up; he wasn't asking it what its opinion was. He didn't need to be distracted by gushy feelings when it was possible they could be attacked at any second by an enemy who only led them to the places she wanted them to go. Shadow was not cool with this battle strategy. It was defensive and reactive, which kept them open to sustaining more injury and wearing themselves down before they got to the Big Bad. They had to come up with an offensive play before they got hurt.

Sonic had a good question in asking him what their next step was. They had obtained a chaos emerald and that was a victory marked up in their column. It set Shadow with a feeling of unease – why did it feel like Mary Sue had _allowed_ them to have it? She had weapons with her in oil ocean zone, why didn't she just bomb them to hell and set the entire zone ablaze from the safety of her aircraft.

It seemed like she was going out of her way to pick the most complicated way of killing them as possible.

"We stick to the plan," Shadow raked his fingers through his quills, "We chaos control to Green Hill Zone where Eggman had tracked the chaos emeralds."

Sonic snapped his fingers and a grin shot over his face, "That shouldn't be too hard to find. Just follow the trail of chaos energy and we'll be on Mary Sue's doorstep!"

Shadow nodded in agreement. It seemed like it was the best plan they could come up with at the moment, and if everything went according to plan they'd be recovering Tails within a few hours. He bit the inside of his cheek as Sonic crowed something about being hungry for chilli dogs and being able to have one with his brother before the day was out.

He hoped Sonic was right, but he had a feeling Mary Sue wasn't going to make things so easy for them. It was a feeling that was reflected in Sonic's eyes as the hero met Shadow's somber gaze. Well masked behind his cheer, Sonic's doubts and concerns were discernible. Shadow frowned, wondering when he had gotten so good at reading Sonic.

That was before he realized Sonic was _letting_ himself be read by Shadow.

A warmth flooded through Shadow that he couldn't deny. Ignore it as much as he tried, but he had more than just a little crush on Sonic. He was afraid to say how far it went, but it had never struck him as powerfully as he did in that moment.

That hint of vulnerability behind the bold eyes Sonic trusted Shadow to see was enough for his heart to start spluttering.

Sonic extended a hand towards Shadow and grinned at him, "C'mon. Let's get going. After all this is over I'll treat you to a chilli dog. I bet you'll love it Faker."

He took Shadow's hand, retrieving the chaos emerald and pressing it into his hand. Sonic's hand rested on the top, fingers sliding against the flat surface, "You ready?"

"As I will ever be," Shadow met Sonic's gaze, a muted smile to match Sonic's beginning to show on his face before he had a chance to squash it like he did others.

Oh he was so screwed.

-::-

**We're in the home stretch! Sorry, not a lot of Sonic and Shadow in this chapter, but what can you do? There are other characters in the story, but don't worry. They'll get their chapter next!**

**So in case you guys skimmed the A/N at the beginning of the chapter, here I am to reiterate. I have a poll in my profile, I would like to know which stories you guys are interested in viewing first. It will help me to better tell which story I should update sooner.**

**Anyway, till next time!**

**R&R**


	10. Level Up

_Crash!_

**Crash!**

_**CRASH!**_

_**CRASHCRASHCRASH!**_

_Whimper_

...

_**CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!**_

"Chaos, there goes what's left of my liver," Nack groaned as he rubbed his back and clutched a bottle of whiskey in his hands with the territorial grip he shared with his feral ancestors when they were protecting their food. He stroked the bottle as if it was a pet and shook his head. Maybe Mary's insanity was contagious. If it was, then Nack figured he might as well go crazy in a lovely haze of cheap alcohol. He was certainly running out of his stash, holding onto one of his last remaining bottles. After the whiskey was gone, then he'd break into Mary's stash of sissy wine coolers.

_**CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAASH!**_

...Maybe he would do it now.

What was she doing in the room over?

No, scratch that. Nack didn't want to know.

"Fang my darling man-which! Come to me Fifi!" Mary sang from the nearby hallway.

Nack twitched and his stomach rolled, empty of everything except the most acidic and bitter cocktail of alcohol. _Did she just call him Fifi_?

It was true then, he was the last sane mobian standing. The thought did not bring him much comfort. Sighing reluctantly, he climbed to his feet to do as his crazy boss required. If it involved getting the emissions done on her car again, Nack was going to eat his hat. That alone had been a strange enough request.

Why did a woman who fancied herself a supervillian need to get her car smogged?

"Oh good you're here," Mary said dismissively once Nack approached the madwoman, "Why didn't you come when I called?"

"Because I don't know who Fifi is," Nack said blandly as he walked up to the overlander. She pet his head affectionately and for a moment Nack had the murderous impulse to stick his rifle in her closest orifice and fire for being treated like a pet. Granted, he was a drunken pet that was heavily armed, so Mary really ought to have known better than to pet him. He ignored his homicidal urges and fixed her with the driest look he could muster, "What do you want?"

Mary handed the massive bag collecting the Chaos drives over to Nack, "Be careful with these." She said firmly, showing just a bit of her fangirl cunning behind her insane demeanor, "These are Chaos drives. Each one contains a source of chaotic power that can manifest itself in different ways."

Nack peeked into the bag, seeing the rainbow tubes floating in the bag and gently clinking against one another. It was pretty, but he was confused over what they were and what their purpose was for their plan.

"I'm not understanding," Nack admitted, frowning a bit. He didn't like to be confused; usually he had a pretty good head on his shoulders. Then again, he was drunk so maybe Mary's plan just wasn't obvious to him.

Well he also had the disadvantage of being sane, so that also probably put him behind the curve a bit when it meant understanding Mary.

"You don't need to understand," Mary said flippantly, "All you need to do is go to the coordinates I marked for you to rendezvous with Scourge. You and him will take a hovercraft and fire an explosive round into the bag which will destroy the drives. You will hide your craft and wait for my signal. This is going to attract the attention of certain individuals and I want their surprise to be ready," Mary smirked.

One thing stuck out to him though, "Wait, Scourge?" He demanded, "You're making me work with that homicidal maniac?"

Mary blinked in genuine confusion at Nack's outraged expression, "Yes?"

Nack rubbed his temple, "You don't even like Scourge."

"You're right, I despise every breath of air he takes into his lungs," Mary agreed happily.

"He's a wildcard that destroys everything he touches."

"That's also true."

Nack threw his hands up in despair and the beginnings of his own descent into madness, "Then why would you make me work with him?" He all but shrieked.

Mary gave Nack a very patient look and smiled at him as if speaking to a small child. She patted his head again, "Because I believed it would make you happy."

To Nack's credit, he didn't burst out laughing at that strange comment. Instead he went very still under Mary's hand and stared up at her in silence and absolute confusion himself.

"Why would that _matter_," Nack questioned, his tail twitching with complete bewilderment.

Even Mary looked quiet, vulnerable and uncomfortable for a moment. Enough so Nack thought perhaps there was a shred of sanity underneath that demented persona that had been tormenting him for so long already. Mary rolled her shoulder in a semblance of a shrug and pulled her hand away from the top of Nack's head. Nack was still so surprised that he hadn't even noticed the petting that time.

"Because you were always my favorite," Mary smiled sweetly at the weasel, speaking in her disjointed manner that never made any sense to the mercenary. This time however, Nack found that he didn't care. He blinked at her as a long silence stretched between them. He felt inexplicably warm at her words – something he attributed to the copious amounts of alcohol he had consumed since meeting Mary.

Grouchily, he grabbed the bag from Mary and slung it over his shoulder, "Whatever.' He growled as he sulked off to do the job. Damn that woman was crazy, but she was beginning to grow on him.

Just as he was at the end of the hallway, Mary called out, "Don't forget to bring back milk on your return trip Fifi!"

And just like that the warm feelings were gone and Nack was back to plotting Mary's 'mysterious' death. He slammed the door behind him, hiding his small smirk under his hat as he went to the ship.

"Did you ever get the feeling that other, weirder characters are getting more development than us?" Sonic asked Shadow as they ran. The darker hedgehog leveled Sonic with a glare that spoke of the long-suffering torment his partner had been putting him through lately.

"Ah, I'll take that as a 'no' then," Sonic said with his usual cheeriness, brushing off the deadpanned stare Shadow was leveling at him.

Shadow rolled his eyes and sped up, but Sonic let him. He was more interested in adding a few more notes to his ever growing thesis compounding the complicated topic that was 'Shadow the Hedgehog and his grumpy-pants ways.' He was considering having his notes condensed down into a scientific journal to be reviewed by a board of scientists and published. Sonic would be claimed as a genius!

The joke died in his mind the instant he realized that someone had probably already _seriously_ done that to Shadow before.

Okay, so maybe Shadow had a reason to be a grumpy-pants after all...

If Sonic was honest, he didn't know much about Shadow's past. Oh sure, he knew bits and details. It was hard not to be able to gather a rough image based on the sheer amount of world ending catastrophes they had to avoid thanks to the subsequent madness of GUN's operations, the ARK incident, and Black Doom causing trouble.

Sonic could conjure a sketchy picture about Shadow which involved experiments, military training, and the termination of his project which resulted in Shadow's broken family. The hedgehog's subsequent reprogramming and lapse into madness had been a result of what had been done to him, but Sonic was still a little unclear what made Shadow change gears to the side of good so rapidly that day.

Shadow had been the closest to defeating Sonic than any other enemy he had ever faced. Every time he looked at Shadow, he remembered that the only reason Sonic had won that day was because Shadow had a change of heart. And a lukewarm change of heart at that. Every time he had seen Shadow afterwards, Sonic noticed that Shadow was only working towards his own goals. Shadow walked a neutral edge, helping any side that benefited him, and it had concerned Sonic to see the dark hedgehog capable of doing evil deeds if they served him.

He wasn't like that anymore, Shadow had long since toppled over to the good side. He worked for the military, his training suiting him well.

...But still. Sonic always wondered what the catalyst had been to make Shadow choose his side of protection over the destructive abilities that came naturally to him.

The answer seemed to be Maria. Every time.

Sonic studied the sleek line of Shadow's back as they ran, wanting to learn more about his partner in a way that was more than strictly curious. He felt a shudder of warmth move through him as he remembered the kindness that Shadow had seemed to foster. Awkward and clumsy, but still a warmth that Sonic was surprised to see in a grumpy mobian of all teeth and claws like Shadow.

The question came out before he could stop himself.

"Who was Maria?"

The reaction was almost immediate.

Shadow hit the breaks so hard, Sonic had to leap over his partner's head just so he didn't crash into Shadow going two hundred miles an hour. He landed in a crouch in front of Shadow and turned around, pouting, "A little warning would have been nice."

At the expression on Shadow's face though, Sonic swallowed a bit harder and crossed his arms, tapping a red sneaker against the ground with nervous energy. Okay. Maybe that had been a stupid question to ask. Shadow's face was blank, an unreadable mask.

Red eyes were searching Sonic's face and Shadow straightened his shoulders. Sonic braced himself for a thunderous snarl of him to mind his own damned business, but it never came.

Instead Shadow gave him a contemplative look.

"Why do you want to know?" Shadow asked, his voice low as he stepped closer to Sonic. Sonic's heart picked up against his will for every step Shadow took towards him.

_Paging Dr. Heart_, Sonic thought to himself, _Paging Dr. Heart. Patient Sonic is telling you to shut up now. Okay thanks_.

"I was curious..." _About you_, his rebellious heart supplied.

Shadow nodded, as if it was an acceptable response. He looked away from Sonic, his face impassive, but Sonic was getting better at reading his partner. Shadow was struggling to come up with words to precisely describe the person that Maria was. Sonic didn't push him, he waited patiently – as patiently as he could, knowing that trying to push Shadow would make him shut down.

After a few long seconds, that to Sonic felt as if they took the better portion of an hour, Shadow's expression cleared. Which for Shadow, meant he was frowning a little less than what was normal.

"Tails is to you, what Maria was for me," Shadow said with soft simplicity.

Shadow didn't elaborate after that, but Sonic remained rooted where he stood. Connotations and new discoveries weighing down on him, each one was a heavy brick that was pressing down on him and stacking on top of the others.

Maybe he was just getting better at reading Shadow now, but that small sentence told him so much. Shadow nodded fractionally at Sonic and sped off, leaving the lighter hedgehog to stand blankly by himself. He jumped up a few second later as he realized he was being left behind and raced after Shadow.

He and Shadow were very similar. So similar in fact, that Sonic felt a little narcissistic with the way he had been looking at Shadow lately. Their experiences had shaped them into vastly different people, but Sonic wondered how dark of a person he could have been if Tails had been brutally taken away from him the way Maria had been from Shadow?

A chill ran up Sonic's spine as he was reminded sharply over how he had reacted to Robotnik.

Maybe he did understand Mr. Grumpy-pants a little better.

He caught up to Shadow to lightly reach out and squeeze his uninjured shoulder. Intense ruby eyes flashed over to Sonic, locking gazes with him. Sonic felt his heart stop for a moment as that regal face stared him down, both of them running without looking where they were going. They were comfortable in their surroundings though. They knew where they were going.

Sonic said nothing. In fact he wasn't sure he _should_ say anything. He and Shadow just watched one another. And then Shadow's lips curled at the corners in... a very small smile.

Sonic's heart just about beat out of his chest.

Oh...

This was strange.

He was still holding onto Shadow.

_I should probably let go now_, Sonic thought to himself, _Shadow doesn't seem to mind_.

Sonic suddenly became acutely aware of how close the two of them were. And how still. When had they stopped running again? Sonic's mind abruptly stopped thinking about running and everything else, instead focusing on just how very _red_ Shadow's eyes were. Sonic stepped in closer, taking in Shadow's unique, spicy scent.

"Sonic?" Shadow's voice came, low and husky. Sonic thought he could feel the heat from the other brushing against his body.

"Yeah Faker?"

Shadow's eyes flickered with uncertainty, his hand hesitantly coming to rest on Sonic's opposite shoulder, their positioned mirrored, "...What're we doing?" He questioned, eyes not breaking contact with his partner.

A smile flickered over Sonic's face and he stepped in closer, his body moving on autopilot. That was one thing he could say about himself. His body knew what it wanted, knew what it needed, and knew how to get it even while Sonic's brain was still catching up .

"I really don't know," Sonic grinned at Shadow, "That okay stripes?"

Shadow's fingers ghosted down Sonic's arm, drawing a shiver from the blue hedgehog. The silence spread between them in an all encompassing haze. Shadow nodded.

That was all the go ahead that Sonic needed. He didn't know who took the first step, but they met one another in the middle. Sonic knew the warmth that was Shadow, felt the other's fur lightly ghosting against his chest, and then he knew Shadow's mouth. He learned it, his arms sliding around Shadow as he pressed in close, prodded by instincts that would not be ignored.

Shadow tasted like spice and electricity, everything that Sonic had come to associate with his partner. And didn't that word just take on a whole new meaning? Sonic let out a soft purr as Shadow pressed closer, the other's hands coming around to rest on his spine, just above the curl of his tail. He could get used to this.

This wasn't something he was expecting from Shadow. The gentleness and the intimacy. There wasn't a run, wasn't a clash that had defined their relationship up until now. This was _slow_.

Sonic was okay with that.

At least he was until there was a sudden explosion of chaos energy that burned behind his eyes. Sonic jerked in Shadow's hold, just as Shadow did similarly. They jumped apart and their heads whipped in the direction they had felt the sudden, powerful surge of chaos energy. Something was happening. Something big.

"I guess we have our next location," Sonic said, a bit breathless. Sense returned to him and he wondered just what in the name of Chaos he had been doing? He had to get to Tails, he could wait to figure out this weird thing with Shadow lately.

Shadow was still and silent for a minute as he looked off in the direction of the chaos energy. There was something... off about it. Something he couldn't put his finger on, but something very familiar. He could feel the energy like it was a pulse. A beacon.

It sent a shiver of unease through him. Of course it could still have something to do with how close Sonic was standing to him. That definitely was a real possibility.

"C'mon Shads! The Chaos emerald," Sonic held his hand out impatiently. Shadow's gaze flicked to Sonic and his lips thinned.

"It's a trap Sonic," He said, keeping his arms crossed as he looked over at the beacon calling them. Sonic looked a bit surprised as he cocked his head at him.

"How can you tell? Maybe it's just our Crazy-Lady Friend causing mischief?" Sonic argued. Shadow could see his point. That was also a very real possibility. In fact it was probably correct. But the energy... there was so much of it and it felt a little off.

"It's a gut feeling," Shadow admitted, hating himself for admitting that. He looked as if it caused him a great amount of physical pain to say such a thing, "There's nothing logical behind it, but it just seems too obvious."

"That so?" Sonic cocked his head as he tapped his fingers against his arm, "Well we gotta go anyway." He shrugged, "Trap or not, Mary is causing all sorts of trouble and we need a way to get to her. Besides, she could have something really nasty for us that could get out and hurt people if we ignore it."

Sonic thought for a moment that Shadow was going to mentally explode out of frustration. He could just hear Shadow wanting to diagnose him with a hero-complex. The agent surprised Sonic though by gritting his teeth and wordlessly holding out the chaos emerald. His displeasure was beyond evident, but he was suffering through silence because he obviously had nothing nice to say at the moment.

Sonic grinned, glad that Shadow was still a sourpuss.

He reached out and took the emerald from Shadow, his fingertips brushing against Shadow's wrist as he took it, "You ready Shads?"

"As I'll ever be," Shadow replied dryly. He looked like he wanted to roll his eyes in exasperation. Walking into a trap was never on his list of things he liked doing, but at least he knew it was within the realm of possibility they would get out of this alive. Sonic knew what he was doing.

He trusted him.

Shadow closed his eyes and pulled the power of Chaos into himself as he shared its power with Sonic. Together they determined their location and in a flash they were gone.

When they reappeared, Shadow took one look at their surroundings and his stomach dropped to his feet. Chaos energy was saturating this place and he leeched it into himself, pushing it through his inhibitors and flowing it back through the earth. This wasn't natural though, and he walked forward past Sonic as he went to where the source if its beacon came from.

It was a bag, ruined and in tatters. Shadow crouched and picked up the broken end of a tube. He could sense Sonic behind him. Too close, too intimate.

He was within Shadow's personal space and _very_ distracting. His heart immediately picked up at Sonic's proximity, unable to forget how Sonic had felt pressed against him, nor could he easily dismiss how the other had wormed his way into his heart and ran circles around it. Shadow licked his lips, remembering how he had tasted and how rich Sonic's scent had been.

He felt Sonic crouch beside him, looking unflustered and without a quill out of place as he reached in and withdrew a tube. Shadow felt a thrill of envy and excitement at how close Sonic was and how unruffled he appeared. It was as if he didn't have even the slightest concern over them kissing. Although Sonic himself had admitted he had no idea what they were doing. Shadow supposed he couldn't blame him for that.

"Chaos drives," Sonic blinked at the broken tube and down at the ground, "That's it?" He asked and blinked at Shadow, "We came all this way for a bunch of broken tubes?"

"I'm afraid not," Shadow murmured. He had been unaware that there were any old fashioned Chaos drives left. For so many to be gathered in one place... He looked around alertly. Sure enough, he and Sonic did not have to wait long for their luck to go south.

From the mountainous ridges around them, blue figure began to emerge in a circling pattern around them. Rows upon rows of Metal Sonic's appeared in a massive wave of shining blue. Shadow's mouth went a little dry as he went back to back with Sonic.

All of the robots began to speak at once, their robotic voices harmonized in a deafening crash of noise that had Shadow's sensitive ears pressing flush against his head.

"Long time no see, Sonic, my loathsome copy," The metal voices said at once.

Sonic quirked an eyeridge and flashed a cocky smile as he looked around himself, "The irony of that statement is totally not lost on me." He grinned at Shadow.

"I'm glad you find it amusing," Shadow said dryly, sinking into a readier position to begin jumping.

But he stopped midway through his stance when he saw a familiar figure walking demurely through the crowd of metal Sonic's. Her sweet face, achingly familiar and impossible to forget. Shadow went stone-still as she pressed through the crowd, brushing blond hair from her face.

"I missed you Shadow," She said kindly.

Shadow make a choked noise in the back of his throat as his eyes went wide.

"M-Maria...?"

And then, like an angry hive of bees, the Metal Sonics descended on them like a swarm.

_**Yep. And Press A to Continue is up! Horrah! Another chapter bites the dust! We're getting really close now guys!**_

_**I want to say maybe two or three more chapters and then it'll be the time of death for this story!**_

_**Also. Sonic and Shadow finally kissed.**_

_**Bam.**_

_**R&R**_


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